ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 


From  the  collection  of  Frederick  Hill  JA 
GRANT  AS  LIEUTENANT-GENERAL 
Photograph  by  Brady 


ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 


BY 

LOUIS  A.  COOLIDGE 


With  Portraits 


BOSTON   AND   NEW   YORK 
HOUGHTON   MIFFLIN  COMPANY 


1917 


C.S 


COPYRIGHT,    1917,    BY   LOUIS    A.    COOLIDGE 
ALL   RIGHTS    RESERVED 

Published  February  IQIJ 


AN  ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

IN  writing  this  book  it  has  of  course  been  necessary 
to  consult  many  others,  reference  to  which  could  not 
be  made  in  the  run  of  narrative  without  impeding  its 
flow. 

On  the  military  side  of  Grant's  career:  The  Per 
sonal  Memoirs;  Battles  and  Leaders  of  the  Civil  War: 
Nicolay  and  Hay's  Lincoln  ;  Richardson's  Personal 
History  of  U.  S.  Grant;  Badeau's  Military  History; 
the  books  of  Generals  Sherman,  Sheridan,  Schofield, 
McClellan,  and  James  H.  Wilson;  Dana's  Recollec 
tions  of  the  Civil  War;  Horace  Porter's  Campaigning 
with  Grant;  John  Fiske's  The  Mississippi  Valley 
in  the  Civil  War;  Recollections  of  A.  H.  Stephens; 
Grant's  letters  to  his  family,  to  Washburne,  and  to 
Badeau ;  the  letters  of  the  Sherman  brothers  —  Te- 
cumseh  and  John;  Gamaliel  Bradford's  delightful 
series  of  Union  and  Confederate  Portraits;  Owen 
Wister's  brilliantly  brief  and  tantalizing  sketch. 

On  the  civil  side  a  multitude  of  writers  have  con 
tributed  material  or  incident.  No  one  can  hope  to 
deal  with  any  phase  of  the  period  of  the  Civil  War 
and  Reconstruction  without  resorting  frequently  to 


3G123 


vi  AN   ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

Rhodes 's  History  of  the  United  States.,  a  monument  of 
research  and  an  exhaustless  well  of  information. 
That  one  may  be  compelled  at  times  to  differ  with 
his  conclusions  does  not  lessen  the  obligation  due. 

Among  other  books  which  have  proved  of  service 
are:  Blaine's  Twenty  Years  in  Congress;  The  Autobi 
ography  of  George  F.  Hoar;  the  Reminiscences  of 
John  Sherman  and  of  Carl  Schurz;  The  Diary  of 
Gideon  Welles;  Hugh  McCulloch's  Men  and  Measures 
of  Half  a  Century;  Merriam's  Life  and  Times  of 
Samuel  Bowles;  the  lives  of  Stanton,  Conkling,  Mor 
ton,  Chandler,  and  Trumbull;  Badeau's  Grant  in 
Peace;  the  lives  of  Sumner,  Chase,  Stevens,  Charles 
Francis  Adams,  Seward,  Sherman,  and  Hay  in  the 
American  Statesmen  Series;  Henry  Adams's  His 
torical  Essays;  John  Bigelow's  Retrospections  of  an 
Active  Life;  McPherson's  History  of  Reconstruction; 
DeWitt's  Impeachment  and  Trial  of  Andrew  Johnson; 
John  Russell  Young's  Around  the  World  with  General 
Grant;  Haworth's  Disputed  Election  of  1876;  Joseph 
Bucklin  Bishop's  Presidential  Nominations  and  Elec 
tions;  Stanwood's  History  of  the  Presidency;  James 
L.  Post's  little  volume  of  Reminiscences  of  Personal 
Friends;  the  Letters  of  Charles  Eliot  Norton;  the  cor 
respondence  of  John  Lothrop  Motley;  Oliver  Wen 
dell  Holmes's  sketch  of  Motley's  life;  Senator  Lodge's 
Early  Memories;  Charles  Francis  Adams's  The  Treaty 


AN   ACKNOWLEDGMENT  vii 

of  Washington.  The  lives  of  Grant  which  have  been 
prepared  by  Garland,  Edmonds,  King,  and  others 
are  excellent  in  their  recital  of  his  exploits  in  the  Civil 
War,  but  do  not  undertake  a  comprehensive  treat 
ment  of  his  public  service  after  Appomattox. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  Grant  had  two 
distinct  careers,  each  of  its  own  right  meriting  a 
place  in  history.  Biographers  have  not  been  nig 
gardly  with  one,  and  what  they  have  written  has 
enriched  his  fame;  but  with  the  other  they  have 
been  less  kind.  It  has  not  been  the  literary  fashion 
to  commend  him  much  for  his  achievements  after 
the  Rebellion;  yet  his  success  as  President  in  set 
ting  our  feet  firmly  in  the  paths  of  peace  and  in 
establishing  our  credit  with  the  nations  of  the  world 
is  hardly  less  significant  than  his  success  in  war. 


vi  AN   ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

Rhodes 's  History  of  the  United  States,  a  monument  of 
research  and  an  exhaustless  well  of  information. 
That  one  may  be  compelled  at  times  to  differ  with 
his  conclusions  does  not  lessen  the  obligation  due. 

Among  other  books  which  have  proved  of  service 
are:  Elaine's  Twenty  Years  in  Congress;  The  Autobi 
ography  of  George  F.  Hoar;  the  Reminiscences  of 
John  Sherman  and  of  Carl  Schurz;  The  Diary  of 
Gideon  Welles;  Hugh  McCulloeh's  Men  and  Measures 
of  Half  a  Century;  Merriam's  Life  and  Times  of 
Samuel  Bowles;  the  lives  of  Stanton,  Conkling,  Mor 
ton,  Chandler,  and  Trumbull;  Badeau's  Grant  in 
Peace;  the  lives  of  Sumner,  Chase,  Stevens,  Charles 
Francis  Adams,  Seward,  Sherman,  and  Hay  in  the 
American  Statesmen  Series;  Henry  Adams's  His 
torical  Essays;  John  Bigelow's  Retrospections  of  an 
Active  Life;  McPher son's  History  of  Reconstruction; 
DeWitt's  Impeachment  and  Trial  of  Andrew  Johnson; 
John  Russell  Young's  Around  the  World  with  General 
Grant;  Haworth's  Disputed  Election  of  1876;  Joseph 
Bucklin  Bishop's  Presidential  Nominations  and  Elec 
tions;  Stan  wood's  History  of  the  Presidency;  James 
L.  Post's  little  volume  of  Reminiscences  of  Personal 
Friends;  the  Letters  of  Charles  Eliot  Norton;  the  cor 
respondence  of  John  Lothrop  Motley;  Oliver  Wen 
dell  Holmes's  sketch  of  Motley's  life;  Senator  Lodge's 
Early  Memories;  Charles  Francis  Adams's  The  Treaty 


AN   ACKNOWLEDGMENT  vii 

of  Washington.  The  lives  of  Grant  which  have  been 
prepared  by  Garland,  Edmonds,  King,  and  others 
are  excellent  in  their  recital  of  his  exploits  in  the  Civil 
War,  but  do  not  undertake  a  comprehensive  treat 
ment  of  his  public  service  after  Appomattox. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  Grant  had  two 
distinct  careers,  each  of  its  own  right  meriting  a 
place  in  history.  Biographers  have  not  been  nig 
gardly  with  one,  and  what  they  have  written  has 
enriched  his  fame;  but  with  the  other  they  have 
been  less  kind.  It  has  not  been  the  literary  fashion 
to  commend  him  much  for  his  achievements  after 
the  Rebellion;  yet  his  success  as  President  in  set 
ting  our  feet  firmly  in  the  paths  of  peace  and  in 
establishing  our  credit  with  the  nations  of  the  world 
is  hardly  less  significant  than  his  success  in  war. 


CONTENTS 

I.   THE  MAN 1 

I.    EARLY   INFLUENCES 3 

II.    BOYHOOD 9 

II.  THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SOLDIER 

I.    WEST   POINT 15 

II.    CADET   GRANT         . 20 

III.    MEXICO 25 

III.  AD  INTERIM 

I.    WASTED    YEARS 31 

II.    A   STRUGGLE   FOR   A    LIVING      ....      36 

IV.  THE  AWAKENING 41 

V.  CALLED  TO  THE  COLORS 45 

VI.  IN  COMMAND 51 

VII.  BRIGADIER-GENERAL 57 

VIII.  PADUCAH,  BELMONT 61 

IX.  DONELSON 66 

X.  UNDER  A  CLOUD 76 

XL  SHILOH 83 

XII.  HUMILIATION 94 

XIII.  THE  MISSISSIPPI  CAMPAIGN 104 

XIV.  McCLERNAND         .         .         .' 109 

XV.    VlCKSBURG I15 

XVI.  RAWLINS  AND  DANA 124 


x  CONTENTS 

XVII    CHATTANOOGA  AND  MISSIONARY  RIDGE.  130 

XVIII.  LIEUTENANT-GENERAL 141 

XIX.  THE  CLINCH  WITH  LEE        .       .       .       .152 

XX.  FROM  COLD  HARBOR  TO  PETERSBURG    .  168 

XXI.  SHERIDAN,  SHERMAN,  THOMAS   .       .       .  177 

XXII.  PEACE 187 

XXIII.  A  GENERAL  WITHOUT  HIS  ARMY      .       .  202 

XXIV.  RECONSTRUCTION 208 

XXV.  LESSONS  IN  POLITICAL  INTRIGUE      .       .  226 

XXVI.  JOHNSON'S  BREAK  WITH  CONGRESS  .       .  230 
XXVII.  AT  ODDS  WITH  JOHNSON      ....  242 

XXVIII.  ACTING  SECRETARY  OF  WAR      .       .       .  254 
XXIX.  A   QUESTION  OF  VERACITY  —  THE  IM 
PEACHMENT  PROCEEDINGS  —  ELECTION 
AS  PRESIDENT       .       .       .       .       .       .261 

XXX.  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES        .  274 

XXXI.  PERSONAL  EQUATIONS 284 

XXXII.  ARBITRATION  WITH  GREAT  BRITAIN       .  293 

XXXIII.  THE  SAN  DOMINGO  TRAGEDY    .       .       .312 

XXXIV.  THE  CUBAN  PROBLEM  —  SOUND  FINANCE 

-"BLACK  FRIDAY" 335 

XXXV.  THE  LEGAL  TENDER  DECISION         .       .  350 
XXXVI.  BITTER  PROBLEMS  —  THE  SOUTH  —  THE 

NEGRO  —  ENFORCEMENT  ACTS      .       .357 
XXXVII.  CAUSES  FOR  PARTY  DISAFFECTION  .       .  379 
XXXVIII.  REFORMS— THE    TARIFF;     THE     CIVIL 

SERVICE;  THE  INDIAN      .      .  .  394 


CONTENTS  xi 

XXXIX.  THE  GREELEY  EPISODE         ....  407 
XL.  CREDIT     MOBILIER  —  THE     BACK     PAY 

GRAB  —  THE  SANBORN  CONTRACTS      .  427 
XLI.  VETO   OF   THE   INFLATION    BILL  —  THE 

RESUMPTION  ACT 442 

XLII.  A  SOLID  SOUTH  IN  THE  MAKING       .      .  456 
XLIII.  THE    WHISKEY    RING  —  THE    BELKNAP 
CASE  —  GRANT'S   STEADFAST   LOYALTY 
—  THE  CHIEF  JUSTICESHIP      .      .      .  473 
XLIV.  THE  DISPUTED  ELECTION  OF  1876    .      .  496 
XLV.  THE  ADMINISTRATION  IN  REVIEW      .      .  521 
XL VI.  THE   TRIP  AROUND   THE   WORLD  —  THE 

THIRD  TERM 534 

XLVII.  THE  END 549 

INDEX  .  567 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

GRANT  AS  LIEUTENANT-GENERAL    .      .      .  Frontispiece 
Photograph  by  Brady 

GRANT  AS  A  BRIGADIER-GENERAL 64 

Photograph  taken  in  November,  1861 

GRANT  AS  MAJOR-GENERAL  COMMANDING  IN  THE 
WEST 116 

Photograph  by  J.  E.  McClees,  Philadelphia 

GRANT  AT  COLD  HARBOR,  VIRGINIA,  JUNE  14,  1864  166 

Photograph  by  Brady 

Showing  also  Col.  John  A.  Rawlins,  Col.  Theodore  S. 
Bowers,  Col.  William  L.  Duff,  Gen.  John  G.  Bar 
nard,  and  others. 

GRANT  AS  LIEUTENANT-GENERAL  (standing}      .       .  200 
Photograph  taken  about  1865,  furnished  by  Mr.  Charles 
E.  Goodspeed 

GRANT  IN  HIS  SECOND  TERM  AS  PRESIDENT      .      .  438 
Photograph  by  Brady,  taken  in  Washington 

GRANT  AT  SIXTY 552 

Photograph  by  Fredricks,  New  York,  1882 

GRANT  WRITING  HIS  MEMOIRS  AT  MOUNT  MCGREGOR  564 


With  the  single  exception  noted,  the  illustrations  are 
from  photographs  in  the  collection  of  Mr.  Frederick 
Hill  Meserve,  of  New  York 


ULYSSES  S.   GRANT 

CHAPTER  I 

THE   MAN 

No  man  who  ever  gained  enduring  fame  was  more  the 
sport  of  chance  than  Grant.  No  character  in  history 
has  achieved  supreme  success  in  war  or  the  supreme 
reward  of  politics  who  owed  less  to  his  own  ambition 
or  design.  A  still  and  simple  citizen,  accustomed 
mostly  to  the  ways  of  unkempt  Western  towns,  un- 
gifted  with  imagination,  indifferent  to  the  general 
stir  of  things,  and  barely  equal  to  the  task  of  fur 
nishing  his  family  such  modest  comforts  as  the  neigh 
bors  had,  he  was  untouched  even  by  evanescent  lik 
ing  for  a  military  life  up  to  the  moment  when  he 
flashed  across  the  vision  of  the  world  —  the  great 
est  captain  of  his  time.  And  when  with  war  in  retro 
spect  he  would  have  been  content  to  live  in  quiet 
contemplation  of  his  strange  career,  unskilled  in 
politics,  innocent  of  the  arts  of  government,  he  was 
compelled  by  force  of  circumstance  for  eight  event 
ful  years  to  occupy  the  highest  civil  place  his  coun 
trymen  could  give.  He  was  the  child  of  splendid 
opportunities  which  came  to  him  unsought,  for 


2  ULYSSES    S.  GRANT 

which  he  never  seemed  to  care,  and  which  he  met 
with  calm  assurance  of  his  own  capacity. 

He  rode  upon  the  turmoil  which  had  tossed  him 
to  its  top  serenely  confident  in  his  ability  to  guide 
gigantic  forces  thrust  into  his  hands.  He  saw  his 
country  reunited,  well  advanced  upon  a  clearly 
marked  and  broadening  road;  then  willingly  went 
back  to  private  life,  rich  only  in  the  opulence  of  fame, 
unspoiled,  unfretted  by  regrets,  and  undisturbed  by 
dreams.  When  he  was  made  Lieutenant-General 
and  wrote  to  Sherman,  acknowledging  that  soldier's 
aid  in  his  advancement,  Sherman  with  equal  mag 
nanimity  replied:  "I  believe  you  are  as  brave,  patri 
otic,  and  just  as  the  great  prototype  Washington,  as 
unselfish,  kind-hearted,  and  honest  as  a  man  should 
be;  but  the  chief  characteristic  is  the  simple  faith 
in  success  you  have  always  manifested  which  I  can 
liken  to  nothing  else  than  the  faith  a  Christian 
has  in  a  Saviour."  So  he  seemed  to  one  who  saw 
him  near  at  hand  in  war;  thus  looking  back  we 
all  can  now  perceive  his  childlike  trust  in  time  of 
peace. 

That  this  shy,  silent  man,  after  a  humdrum  life 
till  middle  age,  should  have  beheld  the  span  of  his 
remaining  years  studded  with  triumphs  and  with 
tragedies  presents  a  riddle  to  the  student  of  his  time. 
His  mind  was  not  attuned  to  notions  of  retreat,  of 


EARLY   INFLUENCES  3 

indirection,  or  diplomacy.  He  thought  straightfor 
ward  and  was  free  from  artifice  —  rare  qualities  which 
served  him  well  in  war  and  in  most  great  execu 
tive  emergencies,  but  were  not  fitted  to  the  sinuous 
ways  of  peace,  the  strategy  of  politics,  the  mysteries 
of  finance,  the  subtle  schemes  of  courtiers  and  dis 
honest  satellites;  and  so  it  cajne  about  that  both  as 
President  and  as  private  citizen  the  record  of  his  truly 
great  accomplishments  is  soiled  with  pages  which  we 
would  tear  out  if  we  could.  Yet  we  should  hate  to 
lose  the  last  heroic  chapter,  even  though  its  sordid 
prelude  is  indispensable  to  the  complete  disclosure 
of  unstained  nobility  of  soul. 

I.    EARLY  INFLUENCES 

Straggling  along  the  northern  bank  of  the  Ohio, 
a  hundred  years  ago,  there  was  a  broken  line  of  settle 
ments  which  served  as  landings  for  the  lazy  river 
craft.  One  of  them,  twenty-five  miles  southeast  of 
Cincinnati,  perched  on  a  river  bend,  was  called  Point 
Pleasant.  Most  of  its  dozen  families  had  drifted  in 
there  from  the  South.  A  few  other  settlers  were 
scattered  within  a  radius  of  twenty  miles.  Here  in 
a  two-room  cottage,  near  the  river  front,  Grant  was 
born  on  April  27,  1822. 

His  father  was  Jesse  Root  Grant,  a  recent  comer 
from  the  northeast  corner  of  the  State,  who  was 


4  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

running  a  small  tannery  for  another  settler.  His 
mother,  Hannah  Simpson  Grant,  was  the  daughter 
of  a  thrifty  farmer  lately  arrived  in  the  county  from 
Pennsylvania,  a  few  miles  out  of  Philadelphia.  His 
name  was  chosen  by  lot  at  a  family  gathering  on  the 
Simpson  farm  six  weeks  after  he  was  born.  It  is  said 
a  maiden  aunt  drew  from  a  hat  a  slip  bearing  the 
name  "Ulysses,"  the  choice  of  Grandmother  Simp 
son  who  had  been  reading  Fenelon's  "Telemachus" 
and  liked  the  character  of  whom  it  was  written:  "His 
wisdom  is,  as  it  were,  a  seal  upon  his  lips,  which  is 
never  broken  but  for  an  important  purpose."  "Hi 
ram"  was  added  to  please  someone  else,  and  he  was 
"Hiram  Ulysses"  till  he  went  to  West  Point,  when 
the  Congressman  who  sent  him  there  rechristened 
him  "Ulysses  Simpson  Grant"  through  a  mistake 
in  making  out  the  papers.  That  is  his  name  in  his 
tory.  The  neighbors  called  him  "Useless"  as  a  boy; 
his  nickname  at  West  Point  was  "Uncle  Sam"  or 
"Sam."  His  soldiers  spoke  of  him  as  "Unconditional 
Surrender." 

When  Ulysses  was  a  little  over  a  year  old,  his 
father,  having  laid  aside  eleven  hundred  dollars, 
determined  to  set  up  in  business  for  himself,  and 
moved  to  Georgetown  in  the  neighboring  county,  a 
backwoods  settlement,  twenty  miles  east  and  ten 
miles  inland  from  the  river.  Though  smaller  even 


EARLY   INFLUENCES  5 

than  Point  Pleasant,  it  had  advantages  from  a  young 
tanner's  viewpoint:  it  was  a  county  seat,  likely  to 
grow;  it  was  in  the  midst  of  an  oak  forest  accessible 
to  bark.  Its  dozen  houses  —  some  of  frame,  a  few 
of  brick  —  were  cheerless,  primitive,  and  crude  —  a 
downstairs  room  in  which  the  family  lived  and  ate, 
a  garret  where  they  slept,  a  lean-to  kitchen  in  the 
rear.  Jesse  Grant  built  him  one  of  brick,  to  which 
he  added  now  and  then  as  family  and  fortune  grew, 
till  it  was  bigger  and  somewhat  better  than  the  rest, 
though  it  would  be  black-listed  by  the  health  author 
ities  in  any  self-respecting  town  to-day.  Here  the 
boy  lived  until  he  went  to  school. 

Life  had  few  comforts  and  no  graces  for  the  Grants. 
The  furniture  was  rough  and  scanty,  the  walls  were 
bare,  the  reading  limited  to  a  few  sermons,  hymn- 
books,  and  Weems's  "Washington,"  unless  they  bor 
rowed  from  the  neighbors;  the  mother  did  her  own 
housework  like  the  other  women  in  the  village,  cook 
ing  at  an  open  fireplace  with  pots  and  crane;  the 
children  did  the  chores.  The  only  thing  resembling 
music  was  the  wail  of  hymns  in  the  tiny  Methodist 
meeting-house,  or  the  squeak  of  a  fiddle  in  the  primi 
tive  tavern  where  travelers  dropped  in  off  and  on 
and  the  men  of  the  village  took  their  toddy,  almost 
their  only  indoor  sport.  Throughout  his  life  Ulysses 
Grant  could  never  tell  one  note  from  another.  "  Old 


6  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

Hundred"  and  the  "Fisher's  Hornpipe"  were  all  the 
same  to  him. 

And  yet  this  ragged  little  place  had  its  distinctions 
aside  from  having  been  the  boyhood  home  of  Grant. 
When  the  Civil  War  broke  out  it  had  a  population  of 
a  thousand,  largely  of  Southern  tendencies.  In  some 
of  the  churches  Grant  himself  has  said  that  member 
ship  depended  more  upon  hostility  to  the  war  and 
liberation  of  the  slaves  than  upon  belief  in  the  au 
thenticity  of  the  Bible.  There  was  no  time  during  the 
Civil  War  when  the  majority  would  not  have  voted 
for  Jefferson  Davis  for  President  instead  of  Lincoln, 
if  they  had  had  the  chance.  "Yet  this  far-off  West 
ern  village,"  he  writes,  "with  a  population,  including 
old  and  young,  male  and  female,  of  about  one  thou 
sand,  —  about  enough  for  the  organization  of  a  single 
regiment,  if  all  had  been  men  capable  of  bearing  arms, 
—  furnished  the  Union  army  four  general  officers  and 
one  colonel,  West  Point  graduates,  and  nine  generals 
and  field  officers  of  volunteers." 

Jesse  Grant  stood  well,  but  had  his  idiosyncrasies 
and  was  not  over-popular.  He  was  thrifty,  indus 
trious,  and  independent,  held  emphatic  opinions  on 
politics  and  other  questions,  not  altogether  palatable 
to  his  neighbors,  and  was  not  tactful  in  the  time  and 
manner  of  expounding  them.  A  Northern  radical 
among  Southern  sympathizers  he  did  not  bother  to 


EARLY   INFLUENCES  7 

adjust  himself  to  his  surroundings.  He  was  a  good 
debater,  according  to  his  son;  read  every  book  that 
he  could  borrow  and  remembered  everything  he 
read  —  almost  his  only  education.  He  was  muscular, 
six  feet  in  height,  and  morally  courageous,  but  cred 
ulous,  ingenuous,  garrulous,  and  disputatious.  He 
was  a  rhymester,  and  some  of  his  verses  printed  in 
the  local  weekly  have  been  preserved,  but  he  could 
write  and  speak  tersely  and  forcefully.  The  tavern 
loafers  with  whom  he  did  not  fraternize  laughed  at 
his  carriage  and  his  gold-bowed  spectacles,  the  first 
in  the  settlement,  and  were  amused  because  of  his 
transparent  pride  in  young  Ulysses,  whom  they  called 
dull  because  he  was  not  "smart"  and  "talky"  like 
the  other  village  boys. 

Jesse  had  pride  of  ancestry  and  was  at  pains  to 
trace  his  family  to  its  New  England  source.  He 
found  that  Matthew  Grant  in  1630  came  from  Eng 
land  to  Dorchester  in  Massachusetts,  and  shortly 
moved  to  Windsor  in  Connecticut,  where  his  descend 
ants  lived  till  his  own  father's  day;  that  his  grand 
father  had  a  commission  in  the  English  army  and 
was  killed  in  the  French-and-Indian  War.  His 
father,  Captain  Noah  Grant,  was  at  the  battle  of 
Bunker  Hill  and  served  in  the  Continental  Army 
through  the  Revolutionary  War;  after  which  he 
migrated  first  to  Westmoreland  County,  Pennsyl- 


8  ULYSSES  S.   GRANT 

vania,  and  then  to  Deerfield,  Ohio.  Jesse  had  a  half- 
brother,  Peter,  who  went  to  Maysville,  Kentucky, 
and  grew  rich.  Noah,  who  was  not  forehanded,  sub 
sequently  went  to  live  with  Peter,  placing  some  of  his 
other  children  in  homes  near  Deerfield.  Jesse  worked 
for  his  "keep"  with  Judge  Tod,  the  father  of  Gov 
ernor  Tod,  and  by  a  curious  chance  after  learning 
his  trade  he  worked  for  the  father  of  John  Brown 
of  Ossawatomie,  and  lived  in  the  house  where  John 
Brown  himself  was  also  living  as  a  boy.  Soon  after 
he  set  up  in  business  as  a  tanner  chills  and  fever  drove 
him  to  Point  Pleasant,  not  far  from  Maysville,  a 
seeming  misfortune  which  he  turned  to  good  account ; 
for  with  all  his  oddities  he  was  resourceful  in  emer 
gencies  —  a  trait  which  he  transmitted  to  his  son. 

From  his  mother  Ulysses  inherited  the  gift  of  ret 
icence  and  self-restraint.  Some  said  he  got  his  sense 
from  her.  He  never  saw  her  shed  a  tear;  she  seldom 
laughed;  she  never  tried  to  guide  him  save  by  her 
own  sweet,  silent  influence.  Deeply  religious  herself, 
she  did  not  undertake  to  make  him  so  against  his  will. 

Even  in  his  hour  of  fame  she  rarely  spoke  about  her 
son  or  talked  of  his  achievements  except  to  say  that 
she  was  thankful  he  had  done  so  well.  When  the  boy 
left  home  for  his  first  long  absence  at  West  Point,  she 
made  him  ready  "and  said  good-bye  without  a  quiver 
of  the  lip.  Thenceforth  she  saw  him  only  at  rare 


BOYHOOD  9 

intervals.  When  he  was  President  she  never  came  to 
Washington,  which  swarmed  with  less  considerate 
relatives,  but  stayed  at  home  working  as  usual  about 
the  house.  It  is  written  that  she  prayed  for  him  con 
stantly  up  to  the  day  she  died.  "  I  have  no  recollection 
of  ever  having  been  punished  at  home  either  by  scold 
ing  or  by  the  rod,"  writes  Grant;  he  never  heard  a 
harsh  word  from  either  father  or  mother,  or  knew 
either  to  do  an  unjust  act;  from  West  Point  and  from 
Mexico  he  wrote  them  letters  full  of  gossip  and  af 
fection.  He  was  a  natural,  human  sort  of  boy. 

II.    BOYHOOD 

A  knack  with  horses  jwas  Grant's  most  noticeable 
boyish  asset  —  a  trick  of  use  to  him  in  later  years. 
He  had  a  way  of  sticking  to  a  job  till  it  was  .done, 
though  he  might  have  to  figure  out  odd  means  by 
which  to  .do  it  —  a  trait  which  stood  him  in  good  stead 
through  life.  The  numerous  anecdotes  about  his  boy 
hood,  current  after  he  had  won  his  fame,  mostly  il 
lustrate  one  of  these  qualities,  or  both.  Every  one  in 
the  village  who  was  at  all  well  off  worked  with  his 
hands;  the  better  off,  the  harder.  "It  was  only  the 
very  poor,"  Grant  says,  "who  were  exempt."  He  was 
a  mere  child  when  he  began.  His  father  had  a  farm 
as  well  as  a  tannery,  with  fifty  acres  of  woods,  a  mile 
from  the  village,  and  before  he  was  eight  years  old 


10  ULYSSES   S.   GRANT 

Ulysses  was  hauling  all  the  wood  used  in  the  house 
and  the  shops.  He  could  not  load  it  on  the  wagon,  or 
unload  it,  but  he  could  drive. 

At  eleven  he  was  strong  enough  to  hold  a  plough. 
"From  this  age  till  I  was  seventeen,"  he  says,  "I  did 
all  the  work  done  with  horses,  such  as  breaking  up 
the  land,  furrowing,  ploughing  corn  and  potatoes, 
bringing  in  the  crops  when  harvested,  hauling  all  the 
wood,  besides  tending  two  or  three  horses,  a  cow  or 
two,  and  sawing  wood  for  the  stoves."  For  recrea 
tion  there  were  fishing  and  swimming  in  the  summer, 
—  he  was  an  expert  swimmer  and  diver,  —  skating 
and  sleighing  in  the  winter.  Nothing  extraordinary 
about  all  this.  The  other  boys  in  the  village  were 
fond  of  hunting.  Grant  never  hunted  in  his  life,  or 
used  firearms  for  amusement.  The  thought  of  killing 
was  abhorrent  to  him.  He  loved  horses  —  earned 
money  by  driving  out  into  the  country  passengers 
arriving  in  Georgetown  by  stage;  at  nine  had  a  horse 
of  his  own.  At  ten  he  used  to  drive  a  span  of  horses 
alone  to  Cincinnati,  forty  miles,  and  bring  home  a 
load  of  passengers.  He  could  do  stunts  at  riding, 
could  teach  horses  to  pace,  could  break  them  to 
harness.  "If  I  can  mount  a  horse  I  can  ride  him,"  he 
used  to  say.  He  could  handle  horses  easily  because 
he  loved  them.  All  his  life  he  kept  away  from  races. 
He  thought  them  cruel. 


BOYHOOD  11 

When  he  was  eleven  his  father,  handy  at  making 
money  in  all  sorts  of  ways,  took  a  contract  for  build 
ing  the  county  jail,  a  job  which  called  for  hauling  a 
great  many  logs ;  he  bought  a  horse  called  Dave  for 
Ulysses,  and  set  him  to  hauling.  The  woods  were  two 
miles  from  the  site  of  the  jail,  the  logs  a  foot  square 
and  fourteen  feet  long.  Eleven  men  did  the  hewing 
and  loaded  the  logs;  the  boy  drove.  One  cloudy  day 
the  hewers  were  not  in  the  woods,  and  Ulysses  was 
left  alone,  but  by  his  own  ingenuity  the  boy  did  the 
job  of  several  strong  men.  A  fallen  maple  lay  slant 
ing  with  its  top  caught  in  another  tree.  Using  this  as 
an  inclined  plane  the  boy  hitched  Dave  to  the  logs, 
hauled  them  up  on  the  trunk  till  they  nearly  bal 
anced,  and  then  backing  the  wagon  up  to  it  hitched 
Dave  to  them  again  and  snaked  them  forward  upon 
the  axles  one  at  a  time. 

He  was  the  best  traveled  boy  in  the  village.  At 
Flat  Rock,  Kentucky,  on  one  of  his  trips  he  traded 
one  of  his  horses  for  a  saddle  horse  which  caught  his 
fancy.  Here  is  his  own  illuminating  story:  "I  was 
seventy  miles  from  home  with  a  carriage  to  take 
back  and  Mr.  Payne  said  he  did  not  know  that  his 
horse  had  ever  had  a  collar  on.  I  asked  to  have  him 
hitched  to  a  farm  wagon,  and  we  would  soon  see 
whether  he  would  work.  It  was  soon  evident  that  the 
horse  had  never  worn  harness  before ;  but  he  showed 


12  ULYSSES  S.   GRANT 

no  viciousness  and  I  expressed  a  confidence  that  I 
could  manage  him.  A  trade  was  at  once  struck,  I 
receiving  ten  dollars  difference."  The  next  day  with 
a  Georgetown  neighbor  whose  brother  had  swapped 
the  horse  he  started  home.  The  horses  were  fright 
ened  and  ran  away  twice.  "The  road  we  were  on 
struck  the  turnpike  within  half  a  mile  of  the  point 
where  the  second  runaway  commenced,  and  there 
was  an  embankment  twenty  or  more  feet  deep  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  pike.  I  got  the  horses  stopped 
on  the  very  brink  of  the  precipice.  My  new  horse 
was  terribly  frightened  and  trembled  like  an  aspen; 
but  he  was  not  half  so  badly  frightened  as  my  com 
panion,  Mr.  Payne,  who  deserted  me  after  this  last 
experience  and  took  passage  on  a  freight  wagon  for 
Maysville.  Every  time  I  attempted  to  start  my  new 
horse  would  commence  to  kick.  I  was  in  quite  a 
dilemma  for  a  time.  Once  in  Maysville,  I  could 
borrow  a  horse  from  an  uncle  who  lived  there;  but 
I  was  more  than  a  day's  travel  from  that  point. 
Finally  I  took  out  my  bandanna  .  .  .  and  with  this 
blindfolded  my  horse.  In  this  way  I  reached  Mays 
ville  safely  the  next  day." 

He  earned  his  first  money  by  taking  a  load  of  rags 
to  Cincinnati,  and  selling  it  for  fifteen  dollars.  He 
was  less  than  twelve  years  old  and  the  business  ven 
ture  was  his  own  device.  "  My  best  training,"  he  con- 


BOYHOOD  13 

fided  to  Thomas  Kilby  Smith,  at  Vicksburg,  "was 
before  I  went  to  West  Point." 

There  is  another  story  made  much  of  by  biogra 
phers  given  to  drawing  lessons,  as  showing  the  boy's 
guilelessness.  It  is  about  a  colt  which  he  was  sent  to 
buy.  His  father  had  offered  twenty  dollars,  but  the 
owner,  Ralston,  wanted  twenty-five.  "My  father 
.  .  .  said  twenty  dollars  was  all  the  horse  was  worth, 
and  told  me  to  offer  that  price.  If  it  was  not  accepted, 
I  was  to  offer  twenty-two  and  a  half,  and  if  that  would 
not  bring  him  to  give  the  twenty-five.  I  at  once 
mounted  a  horse  and  went  for  the  colt.  When  I  got 
to  Mr.  Ralston 's  house  I  said  to  him:  'Papa  says  I 
may  offer  you  twenty  dollars  for  the  colt,  but  if  you 
won't  take  that  I  am  to  offer  twenty -two  and  a  half, 
and  if  you  won't  take  that  to  give  you  twenty-five ! ' 
It  would  not  take  a  Connecticut  man  to  guess  the 
price  finally  agreed  upon." 

The  story  got  out  among  the  other  boys,  and  it  was 
a  long  time  before  he  heard  the  last  of  it;  but  Grant 
was  only  eight  years  old.  If  we  must  have  an  in 
cident  disclosing  Grant's  guileless  trust  in  others' 
honesty,  we  can  find  one  more  pertinent  of  a  later 
date.  There  is  a  letter  bearing  date  of  October  24, 
1859,  when,  writing  to  his  younger  brother  Simpson 
from  St.  Louis,  he  says:  — 

"  I  have  been  postponing  writing  to  you  hoping  to 


14  ULYSSES   S.   GRANT 

make  a  return  for  your  horse  —  but  as  yet  I  have  re 
ceived  nothing  for  him.  About  two  weeks  ago  a  man 
spoke  to  me  for  him  and  said  that  he  would  try  him 
the  next  day,  and  if  he  suited  give  me  $100  for  him.  I 
have  not  seen  the  man  since;  but  one  week  ago  last 
Saturday  he  went  to  the  stable  and  got  the  horse, 
saddle,  and  bridle,  since  which  I  have  seen  neither 
man  nor  horse.  From  this  I  presume  he  must  like 
him.  The  man  I  understand  lives  in  Florisant,  about 
twelve  miles  from  the  city.  .  .  . 

"  P.S.  The  man  that  has  your  horse  is  the  owner  of 
a  row  of  six  three-story  brick  houses  in  this  city  and 
the  probabilities  are  that  he  intends  to  give  me  an 
order  on  his  agent  for  the  money  on  the  first  of  the 
month  when  the  rents  are  paid.  At  all  events,  I 
imagine  the  horse  is  perfectly  safe." 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  TRAINING  OF  A  SOLDIER 
I.  WEST  POINT 

GRANT'S  early  schooling,  the  best  the  village  gave, 
and  then  two  terms  in  private  schools,  at  Maysville 
and  at  Ripley,  was  limited  to  the  "three  R's."  He 
never  saw  an  algebra  till  after  his  appointment  to 
West  Point,  and  as  he  studied  no  more  than  he  could 
help,  his  scholarship  left  much  to  be  desired.  The  love 
of  learning  which  lured  him  from  the  tannery  was 
probably  as  much  his  father's  passion  as  his  own.  The 
knowledge  which  he  found  of  greatest  use  in  after 
years  he  garnered  in  the  University  of  Common 
Sense.  The  ingenuity  he  showed  in  solving  boyish 
problems  was  classified  as  genius  when  later  put  to 
harder  tests. 

He  says  that  as  a  boy  he  did  not  like  to  work,  "but 
I  did  as  much  of  it  while  young  as  grown  men  can  be 
hired  to  do  in  these  days  and  attended  school  at  the 
same  time";  yet,  when  he  was  not  stirred  to  swift  de 
cision  in  emergencies,  he  was  of  sluggish  habit  all  his 
days.  "As  I  grow  older  I  become  more  indolent, 
my  besetting  sin  through  life,"  he  wrote,  in  1873, 
when  he  was  President,  to  Adam  Badeau.  But  in 


16  ULYSSES   S.    GRANT 

necessity  he  was  a  thunderbolt.  This  mingling  of  tor 
pidity  and  force  throws  light  upon  the  seeming  incon 
sistencies  of  his  career.  Other  men  with  contradic 
tory  traits  have  been  conspicuous  in  history,  but  the 
career  of  none  of  them  exhibits  greater  contrasts. 

Most  of  the  villagers  thought  him  backward  when 
they  thought  of  him  at  all,  but  they  were  rather  fond 
of  him  in  spite  of  his  slow  ways.  He  was  pure-minded 
and  clean  of  speech.  He  never  swore;  "a  good  steady 
boy  with  no  bad  habits";  "awkward  and  countri 
fied";  "quiet  and  slow";  "a  great  hand  to  ask  ques 
tions";  "said  little  himself,  but  he  could  answer 
questions  if  you  gave  him  time";  "always  carried  a 
stick;  whittled  most  of  the  time,  but  never  made  any 
thing";  "stumpy,  freckle-faced, big-headed ";  "stead 
fast,  manly";  "quiet  gray-blue  eyes,  strong  straight 
nose,  straight  brown  hair  and  bulky  build";  "not 
pugnacious";  "a  lover  of  the  woods";  "modest,  un 
assuming,  determined,  self-reliant,  decisive."  These 
are  some  of  the  phrases  those  who  knew  him  as  a  boy 
have  given  us.  And  then  this  suggestive  line  from  one 
of  them:  "A  favorite  with  the  smaller  boys  of  the 
village  who  had  learned  to  look  up  to  him  as  a  sort 
of  protector." 

He  loathed  the  tannery,  shrank  from  the  thought 
of  taking  up  his  father's  trade,  and  on  a  fateful  day, 
when  home  from  Ripley  for  the  holidays,  he  was  con- 


THE  TRAINING   OF   A   SOLDIER  17 

demned  to  help  out  in  the  beam  room  with  its  reeking 
hides,  he  told  his  father  as  he  trudged  along  toward 
the  repulsive  task  that  he  would  work  at  it  if  neces 
sary  till  he  was  twenty-one,  but  not  a  minute  longer 
—  that  he  had  rather  be  a  farmer  or  a  down-the-river 
trader  or  get  an  education.  Then  Jesse  Grant  be 
thought  him  of  West  Point. 

Five  boys  had  already  gone  there  from  the  county 
to  get  a  start  in  life  at  government  expense.  The  last 
of  them,  his  nearest  neighbor's  son,  had  just  been 
dropped  for  failure  in  examination,  but  was  too 
proud  to  come  back  to  the  village,  so  that  no  one 
knew  of  his  discomfiture  except  the  Grants.  Why  not 
Ulysses  for  the  vacancy?  The  Congressman,  Thomas 
L.  Hamer,  belonged  in  Georgetown,  and  had  once 
been  Jesse's  closest  friend,  but  they  had  quarreled 
months  before  and  were  not  then  on  speaking  terms. 
He  was  a  Democrat  and  Jesse  was  a  Whig.  So  Jesse 
wrote  to  Thomas  Morris,  Senator  from  Ohio,  but 
Morris  turned  the  letter  over  to  the  Congressman, 
who,  welcoming  the  chance  to  make  up  with  his  for 
mer  friend,  agreed  to  the  appointment  out  of  hand. 
This  was  the  winter  of  1838-39.  When  Jesse  read  the 
letter  from  Morris  telling  him  that  his  request  had  been 
handed  on  to  Hamer,  writes  Grant  in  his  "  Mem 
oirs,"  "he  said  to  me,  *  Ulysses,  I  believe  you  are 
going  to  receive  the  appointment.'  'What  appoint- 


18  ULYSSES   S.    GRANT 

inent?'  I  inquired.  'To  West  Point;  I  have  applied 
for  it.'  ' But  I  won 't  go/  I  said.  He  said  he  thought 
I  would,  and  I  thought  so  too  if  he  did.  I  really  had  no 
objection  to  going  to  West  Point,  except  that  I  had 
a  very  exalted  idea  of  the  requirements  necessary  to 
get  through.  I  did  not  believe  I  possessed  them  and 
could  not  bear  the  idea  of  failing." 

Thus  with  reluctance  Grant  entered  on  the  train 
ing  for  his  great  career.  He  says  himself  that  he  was 
led  to  fall  in  with  his  father's  plan  chiefly  by  his  de 
sire  to  travel.  "  I  had  been  east  to  Wheeling,  Virginia, 
and  north  to  the  Western  Reserve  in  Ohio,  west  to 
Louisville  and  south  to  Bourbon  County,  Kentucky, 
besides  having  driven  or  ridden  pretty  much  over  the 
whole  country  within  fifty  miles  of  home.  Going  to 
West  Point  would  give  me  the  opportunity  of  visiting 
the  two  great  cities  of  the  continent,  Philadelphia 
and  New  York.  This  was  enough.  When  these 
places  were  visited  I  would  have  been  glad  to  have 
had  a  steamboat  or  railroad  collision  or  any  other 
accident  happen,  by  which  I  might  have  received  a 
temporary  injury  sufficient  to  make  me  ineligible  for 
a  time  to  enter  the  Academy.  Nothing  of  the  kind 
occurred  and  I  had  to  face  the  music.  ...  A  military 
life  had  no  charms  for  me,  and  I  had  not  the  faintest 
idea  of  staying  in  the  army  even  if  I  should  be  gradu 
ated,  which  I  did  not  expect." 


THE   TRAINING   OF   A   SOLDIER  19 

There  was  no  thrill  for  him  in  the  call  of  bugles  or 
the  roll  of  drums.  A  bill  had  been  introduced  in  Con 
gress  abolishing  the  Academy.  He  watched  its  prog 
ress  impatiently,  hoping  it  would  pass,  and  when  in 
time  he  became  reconciled  to  the  curriculum  his  idea 
was  to  get  through  the  course,  secure  a  detail  for  a  few 
years  as  assistant  professor  of  mathematics  at  the 
Academy,  and  afterward  obtain  a  permanent  posi 
tion  as  professor  in  some  respectable  college,  —  "  but 
circumstances  always  did  shape  my  course  different 
from  my  plans."  At  the  same  time  there  are  occa 
sional  flashes  of  another  mood,  as  when  he  writes 
his  cousin:  "I  do  love  the  place.  It  seems  as  though  I 
could  live  here  always  if  my  friends  would  only  come 
too."  From  his  undemonstrative  mother  the  boy  had 
drawn  a  vein  of  sentiment. 

He  took  little  interest  in  his  studies;  rarely  went 
over  a  lesson  a  second  time  during  his  cadetship ;  for 
lack  of  something  better  got  books  from  the  library; 
read  Bulwer,  Cooper,  Marryat,  Scott,  Irving,  and 
Lever.  Mathematics  came  "almost  by  intuition," 
he  used  to  say,  but  other  branches,  especially  French, 
were  hard  and  his  standing  was  low.  "In  fact  if  the 
class  had  been  turned  the  other  end  foremost,  I 
should  have  been  near  head.  I  never  succeeded  in 
getting  squarely  at  either  end  of  my  class  in  any 
one  study  during  the  four  years.  I  came  near  it  in 


20  ULYSSES   S.   GRANT 

French,  artillery,  infantry  and  cavalry  tactics,  and 
conduct."  He  was  good  at  draughtsmanship  and  did 
a  few  crude  paintings  which  still  survive. 

A  ten  weeks'  furlough  at  the  end  of  two  years  he 
enjoyed  beyond  any  other  period  of  his  life.  "My 
father  had  sold  out  his  business  in  Georgetown  — 
where  my  youth  had  been  spent,  and  to  which  my 
day-dreams  carried  me  back  as  my  future  home  if  I 
should  ever  be  able  to  retire  on  a  competency.  He 
had  moved  to  Bethel,  only  twelve  miles  away,  in  the 
adjoining  county  of  Clermont,  and  had  bought  a 
young  horse  that  had  never  been  in  harness  for  my 
special  use  under  the  saddle  during  my  furlough. 
Most  of  my  time  was  spent  among  my  old  school 
mates  —  these  ten  weeks  were  shorter  than  one  week 
at  West  Point."  A  wholesome  picture. 

II.    CADET  GRANT 

Among  the  highly  pedigreed  young  Southerners 
trained  in  the  graces  of  society  and  looking  on  a  sol 
dier's  calling  as  fit  for  scions  of  a  landed  aristocracy, 
the  slouchy  little  Grant  must  have  seemed  out  of 
picture  —  hopelessly  middle-class  and  common.  But 
unobtrusively  —  perhaps  without  quite  knowing  it 
himself  —  he  was  absorbing  knowledge  of  the  traits 
of  many  whom  in  after  years  he  met  in  active  service 
either  as  friends  or  foes. 


THE   TRAINING   OF   A   SOLDIER  21 

In  the  Academy  while  he  was  a  cadet  were  several 
who  won  distinction  on  one  side  or  the  other  in  the 
Civil  War:  among  them  Sherman,  Thomas,  Long- 
street,  Hardee,  McClellan,  Ewell,  Buell,  Rosecrans, 
and  Buckner.  In  his  own  class  were  Franklin, 
Quinby,  Gardner,  Hamilton,  and  Rufus  Ingalls,  who 
was  his  room-mate  for  a  time;  that  splendid  soldier, 
Charles  F.  Smith,  was  commandant  of  cadets.  From 
some  of  these  we  get  a  few  swift  pencilings.  Sherman, 
three  years  his  senior,  tells  of  seeing  "'U.  S.  Grant' 
on  the  bulletin  board  where  the  names  of  all  new 
comers  were  posted.  One  said,  *  United  States  Grant'; 
another,  *  Uncle  Sam  Grant';  a  third  shouted,  'Sam 
Grant.'  The  name  stuck  to  him  and  by  it  he  was 
henceforth  known  by  the  cadets  at  the  Academy." 

"A  lad  without  guile,"  says  Viele;  "I  never  heard 
him  utter  a  profane  or  vulgar  word."  "A  perfect 
sense  of  honor,"  says  Longstreet.  "The  most  scrupu 
lous  regard  for  truth,"  says  Hardee.  "Had  a  way  of 
solving  problems  out  of  rule  by  the  application  of 
good  hard  sense,"  says  Ingalls.  Others  say,  "A  clear 
thinker  and  a  steady  worker";  "Little  enthusiasm  in 
anything";  "Not  a  prominent  man  in  the  corps,  but 
respected  by  all " ;  "  A  very  much  liked  sort  of  youth  " ; 
"No  bad  habits  whatever";  "No  facility  in  conver 
sation  with  the  ladies,  a  total  absence  of  elegance"; 
"Could  n't  dance,  never  attended  parties  or  entered 


22  ULYSSES   S.    GRANT 

a  private  house";  "He  never  held  his  word  light,  he 
never  said  an  untruthful  word  even  in  jest.'* 

A  single  splash  of  color  to  relieve  the  gray  monotony. 
He  was  the  most  daring  horseman  in  the  Academy. 
"Grant's  jump  on  York  "  is  still  conspicuous  in  the 
annals  of  West  Point,  when,  in  the  presence  of  Win- 
field  Scott  and  the  official  board  of  visitors,  his  horse 
leaped  a  bar  held  high  above  the  head  of  a  soldier  who 
rested  it  against  the  wall.  There  is  a  tinge  of  the 
dramatic  in  the  story  of  another  exploit  told  by 
General  James  B.  Fry,  at  the  time  a  candidate 
for  admission  to  the  Academy:  "When  the  regular 
service  was  completed,  the  class,  still  mounted,  was 
formed  in  a  line  through  the  center  of  the  hall.  The 
riding-master  placed  the  leaping-bar  higher  than  a 
man's  head  and  called  out,  *  Cadet  Grant ! '  A  clean- 
faced,  slender,  blue-eyed  young  fellow,  weighing  one 
hundred  and  twenty  pounds,  dashed  from  the  ranks 
on  a  powerfully  built  chestnut  sorrel  horse  and  gal 
loped  down  the  opposite  side  of  the  hall.  As  he 
turned  at  the  farther  end  and  came  into  the  stretch 
across  which  the  bar  was  placed,  the  horse  increased 
his  pace,  and  measuring  his  strides  for  the  great  leap 
before  him,  bounded  into  the  air  and  cleared  the  bar, 
carrying  his  rider  as  if  man  and  beast  had  been 
welded  together.  The  spectators  were  speechless. 
'Very  well  done,  sir!'  growled  old  Hirshberger,  the 


THE   TRAINING   OF   A   SOLDIER  23 

riding-master,  and  the  class  was  dismissed  and  disap 
peared;  but  Cadet  Grant  remained  a  living  image  in 
my  memory." 

And  there  is  the  tale  of  his  beating  at  the  hands  of 
a  larger  cadet,  his  going  into  training,  and  his  final 
victory  in  a  fourth  encounter  after  a  second  and  third 
defeat. 

As  for  predictions  of  his  future  greatness,  we  need 
not  give  them  special  weight.  Such  casual  prophecies 
are  remembered  only  after  one  has  made  them  good. 
But  it  may  well  be  true  that  Hardee  said,  while  both 
were  still  in  the  Academy,  that  "if  a  great  emergency 
arises  in  this  country  during  our  lifetime  Sam  Grant 
will  be  the  man  to  meet  it";  that  one  of  his  teachers 
said,  "the  smartest  man  in  the  class  is  little  Grant!" 
and  that  in  the  first  days  of  the  Civil  War,  Ewell, 
then  a  Southern  officer,  remarked :  "  There  is  one  West 
Pointer  whom  I  hope  the  Northern  people  will  not 
find  out.  I  mean  Sam  Grant.  ...  I  should  fear  him 
more  than  any  of  their  officers  I  have  yet  heard  of. 
He  is  not  a  man  of  genius,  but  he  is  clear-headed, 
quick  and  daring." 

Grant  has  told  how  he  was  dazzled  by  Winfield 
Scott,  who  in  his  first  year's  encampment  came  to 
review  the  cadets.  "With  his  commanding  figure, 
his  quite  colossal  size  and  showy  uniform,  I  thought 
him  the  finest  specimen  of  manhood  my  eyes  had  ever 


24  ULYSSES   S.    GRANT 

beheld.  I  believe  I  did  have  a  presentiment  for  a 
moment  that  some  day  I  should  occupy  his  place  on 
review  —  although  I  had  no  intention  then  of  re 
maining  in  the  army.  My  experience  in  the  horse 
trade  ten  years  before  and  the  ridicule  it  caused  me 
were  too  fresh  in  mind  to  communicate  this  presenti 
ment  even  to  my  most  intimate  chum."  He  regarded 
General  Scott  and  Captain  C.  F.  Smith  as  "the  two 
men  most  to  be  envied  in  the  nation." 

Grant  graduated  from  West  Point  in  1843,  number 
21  in  a  roll  of  89.  He  would  have  gone  into  the 
Dragoons,  as  the  Cavalry  was  called  then,  but  there 
was  no  room  for  him  in  the  single  regiment,  and  he 
was  given  his  second  choice,  the  Fourth  Infantry. 
Before  entering  service  he  was  furloughed  at  Bethel 
for  three  months,  and  while  there  the  officers  of  the 
militia  asked  him  to  drill  the  troops  at  general  muster. 
He  was  sickly  at  the  time,  a  victim  of  the  malady 
known  as  "Tyler's  Grip."  One  who  saw  his  exhibi 
tion  says  that  "he  looked  very  young,  very  slender, 
and  very  pale";  that  his  voice  "was  clear  and  calm, 
cutting  across  the  parade  ground  with  great  precision 
-  rather  high  in  pitch  but  trained." 

Grant  has  told  of  two  trifling  incidents  during  this 
furlough  which  gave  him  a  distaste  for  military  uni 
forms  from  which  he  never  recovered.  Setting  out 
bravely  for  Cincinnati  in  his  regimentals  he  was 


THE   TRAINING   OF   A   SOLDIER  25 

followed  by  a  boy  who  called  out,  "Soldier,  will  you 
work?  No,  sirree!  I'll  sell  my  shirt  first";  and  back 
in  Bethel  again  he  was  mortified  to  find  the  drunken 
stable-man  at  the  tavern  parading  the  streets  and 
doing  the  stable  chores  in  bare  feet  with  a  pair  of  sky- 
blue  nankeen  pantaloons,  "just  the  color  of  my  uni 
form  trousers,  with  a  strip  of  white  cotton  sheeting 
sewed  down  the  outside  seams  in  imitation  of  mine." 

III.    MEXICO 

Grant  wore  his  uniform  eleven  years.  When  he 
left  West  Point  the  regular  army  had  7500  men  — 
not  enough  troops  to  go  around  among  the  officers 
who  were  graduated  at  the  Academy.  He  was  assigned 
to  his  regiment  as  a  "  supernumerary  "  with  the  rank 
and  pay  of  a  second  lieutenant,  and  was  ordered  to  Jef 
ferson  Barracks,  near  St.  Louis,  then  "Far  West." 

He  was  anxious  to  quit  the  service,  and  as  a  step 
toward  getting  a  professorship  in  some  little  college 
he  wrote  to  West  Point  asking  for  a  detail  to  the  Acad 
emy  as  an  assistant  in  mathematics.  But  before  that 
could  be  brought  about,  Mexico  began  to  boil,  and 
in  May,  1844,  after  nine  months  of  garrison  life,  he 
was  ordered  south  with  his  regiment.  He  had  lost  his 
heart  meantime  to  Julia,  the  sister  of  his  classmate 
Fred  Dent,  whose  father,  "Colonel"  Dent,  had  a 
large  plantation,  "White  Haven,"  about  five  miles 


26  ULYSSES   S.    GRANT 

from  the  Barracks,  with  negroes  enough  for  comfort. 

There  was  his  usual  persistence  in  the  manner 
of  his  wooing.  He  was  on  leave  of  absence  when  his 
regiment  was  ordered  south,  and  when  he  got  back  to 
St.  Louis  the  rest  were  gone.  Before  following  them, 
he  saddled  a  horse  and  set  out  for  White  Haven.  On 
the  road  he  had  to  cross  a  creek  which  ordinarily  ran 
nearly  dry,  but  on  account  of  recent  heavy  rains  was 
now  overflowing  with  a  rapid  current.  "  I  looked  at  it 
for  a  moment  to  consider  what  to  do.  One  of  my 
superstitions  had  always  been,  when  I  started  to  go 
anywhere  or  to  do  anything,  not  to  turn  back  or  stop 
until  the  thing  intended  was  accomplished.  I  have 
frequently  started  to  go  to  places  where  I  had  never 
been,  and  to  which  I  did  not  know  the  way,  depend 
ing  upon  making  inquiries  on  the  road;  and  if  I  got 
past  the  place  without  knowing  it,  instead  of  turning 
back  I  would  go  on  until  a  road  was  found  turning 
in  the  right  direction,  take  that,  and  come  in  by  the 
other  side.  So  I  struck  into  the  stream,  and  in  an 
instant  the  horse  was  swimming,  and  I  being  carried 
down  by  the  current.  I  headed  the  horse  toward 
the  other  bank  and  soon  reached  it,  wet  through,  and 
without  other  clothes  on  that  side  of  the  stream."  He 
kept  on,  borrowed  a  dry  suit  from  his  future  brother- 
in-law,  and  thus  caparisoned  declared  his  love. 

A  year  later  he  went  back  to  St.  Louis,  and  al- 


THE   TRAINING   OF   A   SOLDIER  27 

though  the  Colonel  thought  his  daughter  ought  to 
look  higher  than  "the  small  lieutenant  with  the  large 
epaulets,'*  he  won  a  reluctant  consent  to  an  engage 
ment.  They  did  not  marry  till  August  22,  1848,  six 
months  after  the  war  with  Mexico  had  come  to  an 
end. 

Before  war  was  actually  declared,  Grant's  regiment 
lay  in  camp  for  over  a  year  at  Fort  Salubrity,  in  the 
pine  woods  near  Natchitoches,  between  the  Red 
River  and  the  Sabine,  then  for  two  months  in  bar 
racks  at  New  Orleans,  then  by  boat  to  Corpus 
Christi,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Nueces  River  in  Texas, 
where  the  "army  of  occupation,"  three  thousand 
men,  was  assembling  under  the  command  of  Zachary 
Taylor. 

All  this  time  the  movement  ostensibly  had  been  to 
prevent  filibustering,  though  there  was  no  question 
among  the  troops  that  its  real  purpose  was  the  menac 
ing  of  Mexico  and  the  annexation  of  Texas.  "For 
myself,"  says  Grant,  "I  was  bitterly  opposed  to  the 
measure,  and  to  this  day  regard  the  war  which  re 
sulted  as  one  of  the  most  unjust  ever  waged  by  a 
stronger  against  a  weaker  nation.  It  was  an  instance 
of  a  republic  following  the  bad  example  of  European 
monarchies,  in  not  considering  justice  in  their  desire 
to  acquire  additional  territory.  .  .  .  The  occupation, 
separation,  and  annexation  were,  from  the  inception 


28  ULYSSES   S.    GRANT 

of  the  movement  to  its  final  consummation,  a  con 
spiracy  to  acquire  territory  out  of  which  slave  States 
might  be  formed  for  the  American  Union.  Even  if 
annexation  itself  could  be  justified,  the  manner  in 
which  the  subsequent  war  was  forced  upon  Mexico 
cannot.  .  .  .  The  Southern  rebellion  was  largely  the 
outgrowth  of  the  Mexican  War.  Nations  like  individ 
uals  are  punished  for  their  transgressions." 

But  Grant  was  a  soldier  and  took  his  orders.  His 
Mexican  service  did  him  credit,  though  it  did  not 
give  him  fame.  He  went  into  the  battle  of  Palo  Alto 
a  second  lieutenant  in  May,  1846,  and  entered  the 
City  of  Mexico,  sixteen  months  later,  with  the  same 
rank,  —  "after  having  been  in  all  the  battles  possible 
for  one  man,  and  in  a  regiment  that  lost  more  officers 
during  the  war  than  it  ever  had  present  at  any  one 
engagement."  But  he  was  mentioned  in  reports  and 
was  brevetted  first  lieutenant  and  then  captain  for 
gallant  conduct.  General  Worth  made  his  "acknowl 
edgments  to  Lieutenant  Grant  for  distinguished 
services";  at  Chapultepec,  Major  Francis  Lee  re 
ported  that  "Lieutenant  Grant  behaved  with  dis 
tinguished  gallantry  on  the  13th  and  14th";  Colonel 
Garland  says:  "I  must  not  omit  to  call  attention  to 
Lieutenant  Grant,  who  acquitted  himself  most  nobly 
upon  several  occasions  under  my  observation." 

He  was  early  made  regimental  quartermaster,  but 


THE  TRAINING   OF   A  SOLDIER  29 

this  could  not  keep  him  out  of  action.  At  Monterey, 
he  mounted  a  horse,  left  camp,  rode  to  the  front,  and 
joined  the  charge  —  the  only  mounted  man  and  thus 
a  special  target.  When  ammunition  was  low  and 
there  was  a  call  for  a  volunteer  to  take  out  a  message 
asking  for  new  supplies,  he  swung  himself  over  a 
saddle,  and,  with  one  foot  holding  to  the  cantle  and 
one  hand  clutching  the  horse's  mane,  dashed  down  the 
empty  street,  within  the  range  of  fire  from  every  side, 
leaped  a  four-foot  wall  and  delivered  his  appeal. 

At  Chapultepec  he  found  a  belfry  which  com 
manded  an  important  position,  dragged  a  mountain 
howitzer  to  the  top  of  it  with  the  help  of  a  few  men, 
and  dropped  shots  upon  the  enemy  to  their  great 
confusion. 

At  Molino  del  Rey,  says  Longstreet,  "You  could 
not  keep  Grant  out  of  battle.  The  duties  of  quarter 
master  could  not  shut  him  out  of  his  command.  .  .  . 
Grant  was  everywhere  on  the  field.  He  was  always 
cool,  swift,  and  unhurried  in  battle  .  .  .  unconscious 
apparently,  as  though  it  were  a  hail  storm  instead  of  a 
storm  of  bullets.  ...  I  heard  his  colonel  say:  *  There 
goes  a  man  of  fire.'  v 

"You  want  to  know  what  my  feelings  were  on  the 
field  of  battle,"  he  wrote  home;  "I  don't  know  that 
I  felt  any  peculiar  sensation.  War  seems  much  less 
terrible  to  persons  engaged  in  it  than  to  people  who 


30  ULYSSES   S.    GRANT 

read  of  battles."  To  an  officer  who  asked  him  years 
later  whether  he  ever  felt  fear  on  the  battlefield  he 
replied,  "I  never  had  time." 

Yet  he  was  an  eminently  practical  and  efficient 
quartermaster.  At  Tacubaya  and  at  Monterey  he 
rented  bakeries  and  ran  them  for  the  benefit  of  the 
regiment.  "In  two  months  I  made  more  money  for 
the  regimental  fund  than  my  pay  amounted  to  during 
the  entire  war."  From  his  experience,  then,  as  quar 
termaster,  with  freedom  to  range  in  time  of  battle,  he 
got  ideas  about  feeding  and  clothing  an  army  which 
stood  him  in  good  stead  throughout  the  Civil  War; 
and  he  learned  other  lessons  in  Mexico.  He  saw  Scott 
cut  loose  from  his  supplies  and  live  on  the  country; 
he  saw  Taylor  cool  and  unhurried  under  fire,  com 
manding  his  troops,  without  a  uniform  save  for  a 
private's  blouse,  and  learned  from  him  simplicity  in 
army  regulation;  he  learned  that  he  could  keep  his 
head  while  under  fire;  and  he  became  familiar  with 
the  points  of  strength  and  weakness  of  officers  against 
whom  he  was  to  be  pitted  in  the  Civil  War.  Lee, 
Longstreet,  Buckner,  Jackson,  Pemberton,  and  the 
two  Johnstons,  Southerners,  most  of  them  of  higher 
rank,  never  thought  that  in  plain  little  Grant  they 
were  disclosing  their  true  military  quality  to  a  com 
ing  conqueror. 


CHAPTER  III 

AD  INTERIM 
I.    WASTED   YEARS 

PEACE  with  Mexico  brought  lethargy  to  Grant. 
After  his  mild  experience  with  the  world  as  a  cadet 
and  then  in  garrison  and  camp,  he  had  had  his  fling 
with  war  and  had  come  through  with  merit,  though 
no  great  prestige.  But  he  was  now  condemned  to  the 
monotony  of  a  subaltern's  life  in  frontier  posts,  with 
nothing  to  look  forward  to  but  years  of  drudgery,  un 
less  he  had  the  luck  to  strike  a  tour  of  duty  which 
would  open  up  the  way  to  resignation  and  agreeable 
employment  in  civil  life  —  like  the  professorship  in 
mathematics  to  which  he  had  aspired.  But  there  was 
nothing  of  the  kind  in  sight.  As  quartermaster  he  was 
stationed  first  at  Sackett's  Harbor,  on  Lake  Ontario, 
for  a  cheerless  winter,  because  another  officer  with 
greater  pull  at  Washington  had  grabbed  Detroit,  the 
regimental  headquarters  which  was  supposed  to 
have  attractions  in  a  social  way,  although  a  frontier 
post.  Then  for  two  years,  Scott  having  righted  this 
injustice,  Grant  had  Detroit,  to  which  he  was  en 
titled  by  position,  but  as  he  had  no  social  instincts, 
being  dumb  with  women,  awkward  and  shy  with  men, 


32  ULYSSES   S.    GRANT 

he  got  no  pleasure  from  its  tinsel  gayeties.  Few  people 
knew  that  he  was  there.  Another  gloomy  winter  at 
Sackett's  Harbor,  and  then  in  1852  orders  to  gold- 
crazed  California  with  his  regiment.  There  was  a 
baby  boy,  born  two  years  earlier  at  White  Haven,  and 
a  second  on  the  way.  He  left  his  little  family  at 
Bethel  and  started  on  the  tiresome  journey  to  the 
coast. 

On  this  trip  he  had  a  chance  to  show  resourceful 
ness  in  an  emergency,  his  only  worthy  opportunity 
between  Chapultepec  and  '61.  Transportation  across 
the  Isthmus  had  broken  down  by  reason  of  the  rush, 
and  it  was  unexpectedly  put  up  to  Grant  as  quarter 
master,  by  such  ingenious  methods  as  he  could  devise, 
to  get  his  expedition  of  eight  hundred  people  to  the 
other  side.  There  he  found  cholera  and  a  far  heavier 
burden  —  all  the  details  of  caring  for  the  sick,  the 
burial  of  a  hundred  dead,  the  countless  grewsome  and 
mournful  offices  of  such  a  plague.  "Grant  seemed  to 
be  a  man  of  iron  .  .  .  seldom  sleeping  and  then  only 
two  or  three  hours  at  a  time  ...  he  was  like  a  min 
istering  angel  to  us  all,'*  writes  one  who  knew  him 
there.  It  is  a  striking  thing  that  Grant  in  later  years 
spoke  oftener  of  his  experience  at  Panama  than  of  his 
battles  in  the  Civil  War. 

His  service  on  the  coast  was  at  Vancouver,  on  the 
Columbia,  and  at  Humboldt,  two  hundred  miles 


AD   INTERIM  33 

from  San  Francisco,  where  in  due  time  he  gained  his 
captaincy.  It  was  a  dismal  life.  He  abhorred  hunt 
ing,  fishing  bored  him  —  the  only  recreations  of  his 
fellow  officers;  there  were  few  books  to  read;  he  pined 
for  wife  and  babies,  one  of  whom  he  had  not  seen.  He 
showed  a  letter  once  to  an  old  sergeant  on  which  his 
wife  had  traced  the  outline  of  his  baby's  hand,  and 
as  he  put  the  letter  back  without  a  word  his  eyes 
were  wet  —  a  likely  incident;  for  all  his  life  his  deep 
est  sentiment  was  for  his  home. 

Like  many  another  officer  thus  circumstanced,  he 
drank  more  than  he  should  and  in  his  case  a  little  was 
too  much.  It  did  not  cloud  his  judgment  or  impede 
his  speech,  but  it  impaired  his  power  of  locomotion 
and  he  was  physically  helpless  while  his  mind  was 
clear.  Those  who  knew  him  testify  to  this  so  uni 
formly  that  it  must  be  true;  and  while  not  of  supreme 
importance  it  cannot  be  ignored.  It  helps  explain  the 
obstacles  he  had  to  overcome  at  the  beginning  of  the 
war  and  the  peculiar  influence  which  Rawlins  had  so 
long  as  Rawlins  lived.  Without  it  we  should  miss  an 
angle  of  his  character  which  throws  a  dart  of  color  for 
our  better  understanding  of  the  man.  We  should  not 
have  had  Lincoln's  pat  comment  after  Shiloh:  "I 
can't  spare  this  man.  He  fights."  Or  his  whimsical 
remark  that  if  he  knew  Grant's  brand  of  whiskey 
he  would  send  a  barrel  to  his  other  generals. 


34  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Just  why  Grant  quit  the  army  has  been  a  question 
in  dispute.  The  reason  which  he  gives  in  his  own  story, 
that  he  saw  no  chance  of  supporting  wife  and  children 
on  his  pay  and  so  concluded  to  resign,  is  no  doubt 
strictly  true.  It  is  in  harmony  with  what  we  know 
was  his  intention  when  he  left  West  Point.  There  was 
nothing  in  the  service,  especially  in  time  of  peace, 
for  which  he  cared,  and  when  he  left  it  no  one  could 
foresee  the  conflict  close  at  hand.  But  there  were 
circumstances  not  entirely  pleasant  which  conspired 
to  fix  the  date  of  his  decision  upon  a  step  which  had 
been  long  in  mind.  He  would,  of  course,  have  liked  to 
turn  his  military  training  to  account  in  some  profes 
sion  better  suited  to  his  taste,  but  in  his  exile  to  the 
coast  that  prospect  disappeared,  and  two  or  three  un 
lucky  business  ventures  taught  him  that  he  could  not 
supplement  his  meager  earnings  in  that  way.  His 
monthly  pay  as  a  lieutenant  was  thirty  dollars,  and 
besides  he  had  for  rations  eighty  cents  a  day  and  for 
a  servant,  sixty-five,  with  wood  for  fuel,  a  single 
room  and  kitchen  —  an  income  all  told  of  seventy- 
three  dollars  and  fifty  cents  a  month.  His  monthly 
pay  and  allowance  as  captain  during  his  last  month  of 
service  was  ninety-two  dollars  and  fifty  cents,  and 
with  the  slowness  of  promotion  that  was  all  he  could 
have  expected  for  years  —  a  dismal  prospect  for  a 
man  whose  wife  and  babies  were  by  the  speediest 


AD   INTERIM  3.5 

route  eight  thousand  miles  away.  As  he  was  near  his 
captaincy  he,  of  course,  had  pride  in  taking  on  the 
higher  rank,  but  after  that  the  sooner  civil  life  for 
him  the  better.  Thus  it  stood  with  him  in  April,  1854, 
when,  having  been  intoxicated  while  paying  off  his 
men,  he  was  reproved  by  his  commanding  officer, 
Major  R.  C.  Buchanan,  noted  throughout  the  service 
as  a  martinet,  who  told  him  that  if  he  did  not  resign 
charges  would  be  preferred.  Grant  resigned.  He  did 
not  have  to,  and  officers  who  served  with  him  have 
said  that  he  would  not  have  been  sentenced  to  dis 
missal  if  he  had  stood  trial.  But  he  was  tired  of 
barracks  life;  he  had  just  become  a  captain.  He  was 
anxious  to  get  East  where  he  could  be  with  those  who 
loved  him  and  were  dependent  upon  him,  and  without 
reflecting  that  the  incident  might  later  prove  em 
barrassing,  he  wrote  a  letter  resigning  his  new  com 
mission  the  same  day  he  accepted  it,  to  take  effect 
July  31, 1854.  By  doing  this  he  left  his  record  clear  of 
a  court  martial,  but  he  could  not  guess  that  he  would 
ever  wear  a  uniform  again  or  be  of  consequence 
enough  to  stir  to  life  old  service  scandal  and  stimulate 
its  sting.  To  Jefferson  Davis,  as  Secretary  of  War, 
it  fell  to  accept  Grant's  resignation.  Jesse  Grant  was 
thriftily  disturbed  when  he  got  word  of  it  from  the 
War  Department.  There  is  on  file  there  his  letter  to 
Davis  of  June  1,  protesting:  "I  never  wished  him  to 


36  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

leave  the  servis.  I  think  after  spending  so  much  time 
to  qualify  himself  for  the  army,  and  spending  so 
many  years  in  the  servis  he  will  be  poorly  qualified 
for  the  pursuits  of  private  life.  .  .  .  Would  it  then  be 
asking  too  much  for  him  to  have  such  leave  that  he 
may  come  home  and  make  arrangements  for  taking 
his  family  with  him  to  his  post?  ...  I  will  remark 
that  he  has  not  seen  his  family  for  over  two  years, 
and  has  a  son  nearly  two  years  old  he  has  never  seen. 
I  suppose  in  his  great  anxiety  to  see  his  family  he  has 
been  ordered  to  quit  the  servis." 

In  spite  of  his  dislike  for  garrison  routine  there  was 
nothing  in  his  California  life  to  cause  especially  un 
pleasant  recollections.  Otherwise  he  never  could  have 
written :  "  I  left  the  Pacific  coast  very  much  attached 
to  it,  and  with  full  expectation  of  making  it  my  future 
home.  That  expectation  and  that  hope  remained 
uppermost  in  mind  until  the  Lieutenant-Generalcy 
bill  was  introduced  into  Congress  in  the  winter  of 
1863-64.  The  passage  of  that  bill  and  my  promotion 
blasted  my  last  hope  of  ever  becoming  a  citizen  of  the 
farther  west." 

II.   A   STRUGGLE  FOR  A  LIVING 
"When  you  hear  from  me  next,"  he  told  his  com 
rades  as  he  said  good-bye,  "I'll  be  a  farmer  in  Mis 
souri."    That  was  his  hope.    But  he  was  in  worse 


AD   INTERIM  37 

straits  than  he  had  thought.  Money  owing  him  in 
San  Francisco  did  not  materialize.  A  good-natured 
quartermaster  clerk  cashed  a  draft  and  found  him 
transportation  to  New  York.  He  landed  strapped. 
A  creditor  at  Sackett's  Harbor  failed  him.  If  his 
classmate  Buckner,  who  was  recruiting  officer,  had 
not  guaranteed  his  board  at  a  New  York  hotel,  he 
would  have  slept  outdoors  until  his  father  sent  him 
money  to  get  home.  There  was  no  great  joy  in 
Bethel  over  his  return.  His  younger  brothers  were 
doing  fairly  well  in  leather,  but  with  all  his  West 
Point  training  he  had  not  made  good.  Jesse,  who  had 
been  so  proud  of  him,  could  hardly  think  of  him  with 
out  a  shade  of  shame.  He  went  on  to  his  wife  and 
babies  at  White  Haven  and  settled  on  an  unbroken 
tract  of  eighty  acres  which  Colonel  Dent  had  turned 
over  to  his  wife  for  a  wedding  present  six  years  be 
fore.  He  cleared  it,  built  him  a  log  cabin  out  of  trees 
he  felled  and  hewed  himself,  and  with  grim  humor 
called  the  new  estate  "Hard  Scrabble."  He  worked 
hard  for  a  living,  peddled  grain  and  cordwood  in  St. 
Louis  for  ready  money,  grubbed  stumps,  bought 
hogs  at  sales,  and  did  the  things  a  farmer  must.  He 
was  more  thrifty  than  his  neighbors  and  showed  more 
ingenuity.  While  they  were  burning  wood  for  fuel 
he  sold  his  at  good  prices  to  the  coal  mines  near  by 
for  use  as  timber  props,  and  used  for  fuel  the  less  ex- 


38  ULYSSES    S.  GRANT 

pensive  coal.  Chills  and  fever  hit  him.  He  gave  up 
farming,  swapped  his  place  for  a  little  frame  house  in 
St.  Louis,  and  tried  his  hand  at  real  estate,  combin 
ing  with  a  cousin  of  his  wife  named  Boggs  who  had 
desk-room  in  a  lawyer's  office.  Money  was  slow  after 
the  panic  of  1857.  He  was  too  soft-hearted  to  col 
lect  rents  from  hard-pressed  tenants.  There  was  not 
business  enough  for  two.  He  applied  to  the  County 
Commissioners  for  appointment  as  County  Engineer, 
the  salary  of  which  was  nineteen  hundred  dollars;  but 
they  gave  it  to  another  applicant.  There  were  five 
commissioners,  two  of  whom  were  Democrats  and 
three  Free-Soilers,  and  the  selection  was  made  on 
party  lines.  His  father-in-law  was  a  slaveholder, 
strongly  Southern  in  his  sympathies,  and  Grant  had 
no  particular  political  affiliations.  "You  may  judge 
from  the  result  of  the  action  of  the  County  Com 
missioners,"  he  wrote  his  father  on  September  23, 
1859,  "that  I  am  strongly  identified  with  the  Dem 
ocratic  party.  Such  is  not  the  case.  I  never  voted 
an  out-and-out  Democratic  ticket  in  my  life.  I 
voted  for  Buchanan  for  President  to  defeat  Fremont, 
but  not  because  he  was  my  first  choice.  In  all  other 
elections  I  have  universally  selected  the  candidates 
that,  in  my  estimation,  were  the  best  fitted  for  the 
different  offices,  and  it  never  happens  that  such  men 
are  all  arrayed  on  one  side." 

1  Letters  of  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  p.  20. 


AD   INTERIM  39 

He  had  a  place  as  clerk  in  the  Custom-House  for  a 
month,  but  the  collector  died  and  he  was  hard  put  to 
it.  "I  do  not  want  to  fly  from  one  thing  to  another, 
nor  would  I,"  he  wrote  his  father;  "but  I  am  com 
pelled  to  make  a  living  from  the  start,  for  which  I  am 
willing  to  give  all  my  time  and  all  my  energy."  His 
father  had  prospered.  He  was  worth  $100,000,  it  is 
said,  a  sizable  fortune  for  that  day.  He  had  estab 
lished  his  tannery  in  Covington,  Kentucky,  where 
he  now  lived  and  he  had  also  bought  a  wholesale 
leather  business  in  Galena,  Illinois,  which  was  in 
charge  of  Simpson  and  Orvil,  his  two  younger  sons. 
Ulysses,  much  against  his  will,  acknowledging  at  last 
his  failure  in  farming  and  real  estate,  turned  to  Jesse 
for  advice  and  help.  Jesse  referred  him  to  Simpson, 
and  Simpson  sent  him  to  the  Galena  store,  "to  stay 
until  something  better  should  turn  up."  The  house 
bought  leather  and  sold  shoe  findings,  saddlery, 
fancy  linings,  and  morocco.  Ulysses  served  as  clerk 
because  he  was  good  at  figures ;  the  other  brothers  did 
the  bargaining  for  which  he  was  not  fit.  He  was  al 
lowed  eight  hundred  dollars  salary,  and  drew  seven 
hundred  more  to  settle  obligations  in  St.  Louis,  a 
sum  which  he  paid  back  afterwards.  He  had  a  com 
fortable  little  house,  attended  the  Methodist  church, 
wore  an  old  blue  army  coat  which  he  had  bought  on 
the  Pacific  Coast,  traveled  to  Iowa  and  Wisconsin 


40  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

once  to  buy  hides,  and  was  becoming  gradually  set 
tled  to  his  environment,  although  few  people  knew 
him  even  by  sight.  "  In  my  new  employment  I  have 
become  pretty  conversant,"  he  wrote  a  friend  in 
December,  1860,  "and  am  much  pleased  with  it.  I 
hope  to  be  a  partner  pretty  soon,  and  am  sanguine 
that  a  competency  at  least  can  be  made  out  of  the 
business." 
And  then  came  Sumter  and  the  call  for  troops. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  AWAKENING 

How,  when  the  North  sprang  to  Lincoln's  call,  the 
men  of  Galena  found  among  themselves  the  un 
assuming  captain  with  his  shabby  army  coat,  singled 
him  out  because  he  had  seen  service,  putting  him  in 
the  chair  at  their  war  meeting,  offering  him  the  cap 
taincy  of  their  company  which  he  declined,  asking 
him  to  form  and  drill  them  and  see  that  they  were 
suitably  equipped,  and  how  when  they  marched  to 
the  station  through  flags  and  cheers,  he  stood  in  the 
crowd  and  watched  them  pass,  trailing  along  with  his 
old  carpetbag,  following  them  to  Springfield,  to  be  of 
service  if  he  might,  has  been  recited  many  times.  But 
this  is  not  all  the  story.  For  months  Grant's  mind 
had  been  in  process  of  slow  fermentation.  All  through 
the  pregnant  winter  filled  with  secession  talk,  he  was 
observing  the  approach  to  war.  "  It  is  hard  to  realize," 
he  wrote  in  December,  "that  a  State  or  States  should 
commit  so  suicidal  an  act  as  to  secede  from  the  Union, 
though  from  all  reports  I  have  no  doubt  but  five  of 
them  will  do  it.  And  then,  with  the  present  granny  of 
an  executive,  some  foolish  policy  will  doubtless  be 
pursued  which  will  give  the  seceding  States  the  sup- 


42  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

port  and  sympathy  of  the  Southern  States  that  don't 
go  out." 

To  Rowley,  who  said  in  February,  "There's  a 
great  deal  of  bluster  about  these  Southerners,  but  I 
don't  think  there's  much  fight  in  them,"  he  replied 
earnestly,  "  You  are  mistaken,  ...  if  they  ever  get  at 
it  they  will  make  a  strong  fight.  .  .  .  Each  side  under 
estimates  the  other  and  overestimates  itself."  Seven 
days  after  Sumter  he  was  writing  to  his  Democratic, 
slaveholding  father-in-law:  "Now  is  the  time,  par 
ticularly  in  the  border  slave  States,  for  men  to  prove 
their  love  of  country.  I  know  it  is  hard  for  men  to 
apparently  work  with  the  Republican  party,  but  now 
all  party  distinctions  should  be  lost  sight  of  and  every 
true  patriot  be  for  maintaining  the  integrity  of  the 
glorious  old  Stars  and  Stripes,  the  Constitution  and 
the  Union.  No  impartial  man  can  conceal  from  him 
self  the  fact  that  in  all  these  troubles  the  South  have 
been  the  aggressors  and  the  Administration  has  stood 
purely  on  the  defensive,  more  on  the  defensive  than 
she  would  have  dared  to  have  done  but  for  her  con 
sciousness  of  strength  and  the  certainty  of  right  pre 
vailing  in  the  end.  ...  In  all  this  I  can  but  see  the 
doom  of  slavery.  The  North  do  not  want,  nor  will 
they  want,  to  interfere  with  the  institution.  But 
they  will  refuse  for  all  time  to  give  it  protection  un 
less  the  South  shall  return  soon  to  their  allegiance." 


THE   AWAKENING  43 

To  his  abolition  father,  two  days  later,  his  words 
were  dutiful,  as  befitting  filial  and  financial  depend 
ence,  but  clear:  "  We  are  now  in  the  midst  of  trying 
times  when  every  one  must  be  for  or  against  his 
country,  and  show  his  colors  too  by  his  every  act. 
Having  been  educated  for  such  an  emergency,  at  the 
expense  of  the  Government,  I  feel  that  it  has  upon  me 
superior  claims,  such  claims  as  no  ordinary  motives 
of  self-interest  can  surmount.  I  do  not  wish  to  act 
hastily  or  inadvisably  in  the  matter,  and  as  there  are 
more  than  enough  to  respond  to  the  first  call  of  the 
President,  I  have  not  yet  offered  myself.  I  have 
promised,  and  am  giving  all  the  assistance  I  can  in 
organizing  the  company  whose  services  have  been 
accepted  from  this  place.  I  have  promised  further  to 
go  with  them  to  the  State  Capital,  and  if  I  can  be  of 
service  to  the  Governor  in  organizing  his  state  troops 
to  do  so.  What  I  ask  now  is  your  approval  of  the 
course  I  am  taking  or  your  advice  in  the  matter.  .  .  . 
There  are  but  two  parties  now,  traitors  and  patriots, 
and  I  want  hereafter  to  be  ranked  with  the  latter,  and, 
I  trust,  the  stronger  party." 

To  his  sister:  "The  conduct  of  eastern  Virginia  has 
been  so  abominable  through  the  whole  contest  that 
there  would  be  a  great  deal  of  disappointment  here  if 
matters  should  be  settled  before  she  is  thoroughly 
punished.  This  is  my  feeling  and  I  believe  it  uni- 


44  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

versal.  Great  allowance  should  be  made  for  South 
Carolinians;  for  the  last  generation  have  been  edu 
cated  from  their  infancy  to  look  upon  their  govern 
ment  as  oppressive  and  tyrannical  and  only  to  be 
endured  till  such  time  as  they  might  have  sufficient 
strength  to  strike  it  down.  Virginia  and  other  border 
States  have  no  such  excuse,  and  are  therefore 
traitors  at  heart  as  well  as  in  act." 


CHAPTER  V 

CALLED  TO  THE  COLORS 

GRANT  understood  the  sober  side  of  war,  and  so  at 
Springfield  in  the  brood  of  patriots  chirping  for  recog 
nition  he  did  not  push  his  way.  He  was  not  eager  for 
spectacular  distinction  after  the  way  of  politicians 
hunting  for  a  rostrum  to  address  the  pyramids,  con 
fusing  oratory  with  a  genius  for  command.  He  was 
indifferent  to  gold  lace  and  epaulettes  —  just  a  plain 
soldier  who  had  not  done  well  in  civil  life  and  thought 
he  saw  a  chance  to  work  again  at  the  one  trade  he 
knew.  The  city  was  a  scene  of  cheap  confusion. 
Richard  Yates,  the  governor,  eager  and  keen  of  wit  in 
politics,  was  struggling  blindly  in  a  flood  of  strange 
emergencies.  Every  man  of  consequence  in  Illinois 
was  pressing  for  commissions  for  himself  or  for  his 
friends.  Companies  of  volunteers  were  pouring  in, 
undrilled,  unskilled,  ununiformed,  unarmed,  hardly  a 
musket  to  a  dozen  men;  regiments  of  raw-boned  boys 
and  awkward  squads,  officered  by  village  Cromwells 
and  country-store  Turennes,  —  among  them  soldiers 
to  the  core  like  Logan,  —  soon  to  comprise  the 
nucleus  of  the  hardiest  veteran  army  the  world  had 
ever  seen. 

Of  all  of  the  companies  one  of  the  best  came  from 


46  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

Galena,  hastily  drilled  and  uniformed  by  Quarter 
master-Captain  Grant,  who  now,  neglected  in  the 
crowd  and  having  done  his  duty  by  his  local  volun 
teers,  was  on  the  point  of  leaving  Springfield,  when 
Yates,  perceiving  that  his  military  training  might  be 
utilized,  found  him  a  corner  in  a  dingy  closet,  which 
served  the  adjutant-general  as  an  office,  and  let  him 
spend  his  time  in  filling  blanks  for  orders  —  the 
sort  of  thing  a  boy  might  do  after  once  having  caught 
the  trick. 

"My  old  army  experience  I  found  indeed  of  great 
service,"  Grant  wrote  after  twenty  years.  "I  was  no 
clerk,  nor  had  I  any  capacity  to  become  one.  ...  But 
I  had  been  quartermaster,  commissary,  and  adjutant 
in  the  field.  The  army  forms  were  familiar  to  me  and 
I  could  direct  how  they  should  be  made  out!"  So  he 
stuck  to  his  simple  task,  —  looked  up  old  muskets  in 
the  arsenal,  made  reports,  answered  questions  about 
regulations,  showed  such  familiarity  with  military 
things  that  he  was  made  drill-master  at  outlying 
camps,  and  was  so  quietly  effective  that  Yates  made 
him  "mustering  officer  and  aide,"  calling  him 
"colonel"  and  paying  him  three  dollars  a  day.  It  is  a 
singularity  of  Grant's  career  that  he  never  asked  for 
an  appointment  or  promotion  which  he  obtained  and 
that  he  never  shirked  a  job  no  matter  whether  mean 
or  great  which  came  his  way. 


CALLED   TO   THE   COLORS  47 

So  numerous  and  eager  were  volunteers  that  the 
Legislature  provided  for  additional  regiments.  It  was 
some  of  these  that  Grant  was  set  to  muster  in,  and 
when  that  should  be  done,  he  wrote  his  father  three 
weeks  after  Lincoln's  call,  "I  presume  my  services 
may  end.  I  might  have  obtained  the  colonelcy  of  a 
regiment  possibly,  but  I  was  perfectly  sickened  at  the 
political  wire-pulling  for  all  these  commissions,  and 
would  not  engage  in  it.  I  shall  be  in  no  ways  back 
ward  in  offering  my  services  when  and  where  they  are 
required,  but  I  feel  that  I  have  done  more  now  than  I 
could  do  serving  as  a  captain  under  a  green  colonel, 
and  if  this  thing  continues  they  will  want  more  men 
at  a  later  day.  I  can  go  back  to  Galena  and  drill  the 
three  or  four  companies  there  and  render  them 
efficient  for  any  future  call.  My  own  opinion  is  that 
this  war  will  be  but  of  short  duration/' 

A  few  days  in  St.  Louis,  while  mustering  in  a 
slowly  gathering  regiment,  just  as  Francis  P.  Blair 
and  Nathaniel  Lyon  were  cleaning  up  Camp  Jackson 
which  the  secession  Governor  Claiborne  Jackson  had 
established  on  the  outskirts  with  a  view  to  seizing  the 
city  and  the  Federal  arsenal.  He  saw  the  rebel  flag 
hauled  down  from  the  secession  headquarters,  and  he 
recites  how,  when  a  spruce  young  fellow  in  a  street 
car  turned  to  him  to  say,  "Things  have  come  to  a 
pretty  pass  when  a  free  people  can't  choose  their  own 


48  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

flag;  where  I  came  from,  if  a  man  dares  to  say  a  word 
in  favor  of  the  Union  we  hang  him  to  the  first  tree 
we  come  to,"  he  replied,  "After  all,  we  are  not  as 
intolerant  in  St.  Louis  as  we  might  be;  I  have  not  seen 
a  single  rebel  hung  yet  nor  heard  of  one;  there  are 
plenty  of  them  who  ought  to  be,  however/* 

His  work  at  mustering  in  was  quickly  over. 
Brigadier-General  John  Pope,  a  native  of  the  State 
stationed  at  Springfield  as  Federal  mustering  officer, 
whom  he  had  known  at  West  Point  and  in  Mexico, 
offered  to  get  him  recommended  for  appointment  to 
the  Federal  service;  but  Grant,  who  was  a  carpet 
bagger  and  had  no  influential  friends  to  push  him, 
would  have  none  of  it.  "  I  declined  to  receive  endorse 
ment  for  permission  to  fight  for  my  country." 

So  back  to  Galena  for  a  week,  where  he  was  filled 
with  restlessness.  "During  the  six  days  I  have  been 
at  home,"  he  writes,  "I  have  felt  all  the  time  as  if  a 
duty  were  being  neglected  that  was  paramount  to  any 
other  duty  I  ever  owed.  I  have  every  reason  to  be 
well  satisfied  with  myself  for  the  services  already 
rendered,  but  to  stop  now  would  not  do." 

During  this  visit  he  wrote  the  Adjutant-General  of 
the  Army  tendering  his  services  and  offering  the  only 
suggestion  he  ever  made  about  his  rank:  "Having 
served  for  fifteen  years  in  the  regular  army,  including 
four  years  at  West  Point,  and  feeling  it  the  duty  of 


CALLED  TO  THE   COLORS  49 

every  one  who  has  been  educated  at  the  government 
expense  to  offer  their  services  for  the  support  of  the 
Government,  I  have  the  honor,  very  respectfully,  to 
tender  my  services  until  the  close  of  the  war  in  such 
capacity  as  may  be  offered.  I  would  say,  in  view  of 
my  present  age  and  length  of  service,  I  feel  myself 
competent  to  command  a  regiment  if  the  President, 
in  his  judgment,  should  see  fit  to  entrust  one  to  me. 
Since  the  first  call  of  the  President,  I  have  been  serv 
ing  on  the  staff  of  the  Governor  of  this  State,  render 
ing  such  aid  as  I  could  in  the  organization  of  our 
state  militia,  and  am  still  engaged  in  that  capacity. 
A  letter  addressed  to  me  at  Springfield,  Illinois,  will 
reach  me."  No  letter  ever  came.  The  application 
was  buried  among  department  papers  and  the  Adju 
tant-General  never  saw  it  till  long  after  the  war  was 
over. 

But  other  avenues  of  service  opened  to  the  diffident 
soldier,  who  later  wrote:  "I  had  felt  some  hesitation 
in  suggesting  rank  as  high  as  the  colonelcy  of  a  regi 
ment,  feeling  somewhat  doubtful  whether  I  would  be 
equal  to  the  position.  But  I  had  seen  nearly  every 
colonel  who  had  been  mustered  in  from  the  State  of 
Illinois,  and  some  from  Indiana,  and  felt  that  if  they 
could  command  a  regiment  properly  and  with  credit, 
I  could  also." 

Yates  would  have  recommended  his  appointment 


50  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

as  a  brigadier,  but  he  declined;  said  he  did  n't  want 
rank  till  he  had  earned  it.  "What  kind  of  a  man  is 
this  Captain  Grant?"  Yates  asked  a  bookkeeper 
from  the  Galena  store;  "though  anxious  to  serve  he 
seems  reluctant  to  take  any  high  position.  .  .  .  What 
does  he  want?"  "The  way  to  deal  with  him,"  was 
the  reply,  "is  to  ask  him  no  questions,  but  simply 
order  him  to  duty.  He  will  obey  promptly."  Where 
upon  Yates  wired  Grant,  then  visiting  his  father  at 
Covington:  "You  are  this  day  appointed  Colonel  of 
the  Twenty-first  Illinois  Volunteers  and  requested  to 
take  command  at  once."  His  commission  was  dated 
June  16,  1861. 


CHAPTER  VI 
IN  COMMAND 

GRANT  had  been  set,  a  month  before,  to  muster  in  the 
regiment  now  put  under  his  command,  a  raw  and 
ragged  lot  of  country  boys,  camped  near  Mattoon, 
their  former  colonel,  chosen  by  themselves  by  reason 
of  his  warlike  aspect,  a  former  Costa  Rican  filibuster 
with  a  propensity  for  bowie  knives  and  whiskey,  and 
a  way  of  making  daily  harangues  to  his  helpless 
men,  dragging  his  sentries  sometimes  from  their 
posts  for  nightly  orgies.  When  it  came  to  serving 
under  him  in  war,  the  officers  objected,  and  remem 
bering  the  quietly  effective  soldier  who  had  taught 
them  how  to  drill  they  asked  the  Governor  to  give 
them  Grant.  That  was  how  Grant  came  by  his  first 
regiment. 

The  new  commander  had  no  uniform,  although  he 
bought  one  later  with  three  hundred  dollars  which  he 
borrowed  from  a  friend.  His  rusty  clothes  and  stoop 
ing  shoulders  contrasted  queerly  with  the  military 
strut  of  some  of  the  militia  colonels.  He  tells  how, 
when  he  went  to  take  command,  Logan  and  Mc- 
Clernand,  two  Democratic  Congressmen,  both  later 
to  be  generals  of  volunteers,  went  with  him  to  inspire 


52  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

the  backward  regiment  with  military  fervor;  and  he 
relates  how  Logan's  speech  aroused  his  men  to  such 
a  pitch  that  "they  would  have  volunteered  to  remain 
in  the  army  as  long  as  an  enemy  of  the  country  con 
tinued  to  bear  arms  against  it."  But  he  neglects  to 
say  that  after  the  first  burst  of  oratory,  when>Mc- 
Clernand  presented  him  as  the  new  colonel,  and  the 
men,  looking  for  another  thrill,  called  out,  "Grant! 
Grant!"  he  simply  said,  "Go  to  your  quarters,"  in 
the  clear,  carrying,  inevitable  voice  which  years  be 
fore  had  caught  the  ears  of  loiterers  on  the  Bethel 
Green  and  which  would  soon  have  its  incisive  way  on 
more  tumultuous  fields.  Nor  does  he  tell  how  his  new 
regiment,  for  the  first  time  catching  the  inflection 
of  control,  went  to  their  quarters  silently,  under  the 
unaccustomed  spell. 

He  drilled  and  disciplined  them  for  a  month.  Or 
dered  to  the  Missouri  line,  where  secession  was  still 
struggling  for  the  border  State,  he  marched  his  men 
across  the  country,  so  as  to  teach  them  how,  instead 
of  waiting  for  a  train. 

His  six  weeks  in  Missouri  gave  him  no  chance  for 
much  of  anything,  but  to  his  father  he  confides 
that  his  services  with  the  regiment  have  been 
"highly  satisfactory  to  me.  I  took  it  in  a  very 
disorganized,  demoralized,  and  insubordinate  condi 
tion  and  have  worked  it  up  to  a  reputation  equal  to 


IN   COMMAND  53 

the  best,  and,  I  believe,  with  the  good-will  of  all  the 
officers  and  all  the  men.  Hearing  that  I  was  likely  to 
be  promoted,  the  officers  with  great  unanimity  have 
requested  to  be  attached  to  my  command.  This  I 
don't  want  you  to  read  to  others,  for  I  very  much  dis 
like  speaking  of  myself,"  —  a  disagreeable  restraint 
for  Jesse,  whose  paternal  pride  was  just  beginning 
to  revive. 

An  incident  illuminating  in  the  naivete  with  which 
he  tells  it :  At  Mexico,  Missouri,  where  he  encamped 
for  several  weeks,  he  had  his  earliest  opportunity  to 
exercise  his  regiment  in  battalion  drill.  "I  had  never 
looked  at  a  copy  of  tactics  from  the  time  of  my  grad 
uation  .  .  .  had  not  been  at  a  battalion  drill  since  1846. 
The  arms  had  been  changed  and  Hardee's  tactics  had 
been  adopted.  I  got  a  copy  of  tactics  and  studied  one 
lesson,  intending  to  confine  the  exercise  of  the  first 
day  to  the  commands  I  thus  learned.  I  do  not  be 
lieve  that  the  officers  of  the  regiment  ever  discovered 
that  I  had  never  studied  the  tactics  that  I  used,"  — 
an  instance,  slight  it  may  be,  of  the  saving  common 
sense  which  served  him  all  his  life  for  genius.  "I 
never  maneuver,"  he  said  to  Meade  before  the  battle 
of  the  Wilderness.  "My  only  points  of  doubt  were 
as  to  your  knowledge  of  sound  strategy  and  of  books 
of  science  and  history,"  Sherman  wrote  him  in  a 
memorable  letter,  "but  I  confess  your  common  sense 


54  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

seems  to  have  supplied  all  this."  And  after  he  had 
gained  his  fame  he  said  to  a  young  officer,  who  would 
have  talked  to  him  of  Jomini,  that  he  had  never  paid 
much  attention  to  that  authority  on  military  strat 
egy.  "The  art  of  war  is  simple  enough.  Find  out 
where  your  enemy  is.  Get  at  him  as  soon  as  you  can. 
Strike  at  him  as  hard  as  you  can,  and  keep  moving 
on." 

In  his  meager  library  there  were  no  books  on  war, 
and  he  never  seemed  to  care  about  the  strategy  of  the 
great  generals  of  history.  To  him  the  Civil  War  with 
every  campaign  in  it  was  a  problem  by  itself.  His 
only  purpose  was  to  wrest  success  out  of  conditions 
placed  before  him,  with  such  weapons  as  were  nearest 
to  his  hand.  The  game  of  war  had  no  attraction  for 
him.  "  You  ask  if  I  should  not  like  to  go  in  the  regu 
lar  army,"  he  writes  his  father,  just  after  being  made 
a  colonel.  "I  should  not.  I  want  to  bring  my  chil 
dren  up  to  useful  employment  and  in  the  army  the 
chance  is  poor." 

Another  story  helps  to  explain  a  trait  which  was 
of  service  to  him  through  his  life.  The  first  serious 
task  to  which  his  regiment  was  put  was  to  dis 
perse  a  band  of  troops  under  a  guerrilla  officer  who 
had  become  a  terror  in  that  part  of  the  State.  "As 
we  approached  the  brow  of  the  hill  from  which  it  was 
expected  we  could  see  Harris's  camp  and  possibly 


IN    COMMAND  55 

find  his  men  ready  formed  to  meet  us,  my  heart  kept 
getting  higher  and  higher  until  it  felt  to  me  as  though 
it  was  in  my  throat.  I  would  have  given  anything 
then  to  have  been  back  in  Illinois,  but  I  had  not  the 
moral  courage  to  halt  and  consider  what  to  do;  I  kept 
right  on.  When  we  reached  a  point  from  which  the 
valley  was  in  full  view  I  halted.  The  place  where 
Harris  had  been  encamped  a  few  days  before  was 
still  there,  and  the  marks  of  a  recent  encampment 
were  plainly  visible,  but  the  troops  were  gone.  My 
heart  resumed  its  place.  It  occurred  to  me  at  once 
that  Harris  had  been  as  much  afraid  of  me  as  I  had 
been  of  him.  This  was  a  view  of  the  question  I  had 
never  taken  before,  but  it  was  one  I  never  forgot 
afterwards.  From  that  event  until  the  close  of  the 
war  I  never  experienced  trepidation  upon  confront 
ing  an  enemy,  though  I  always  felt  more  or  less 
anxiety.  I  never  forgot  that  he  had  as  much  rea 
son  to  fear  my  forces  as  I  had  his.  The  lesson  was  val 
uable." 

It  was  his  first  experience  in  independent  and  re 
sponsible  command  —  and  so,  according  to  his  own 
interpretation,  he  was  dubious  of  the  result.  Like 
Grant's  other  lessons,  this  was  one  which  he  had  to 
learn  only  once.  He  never  was  concerned  about  the 
opposition;  considered  only  what  he  had  to  do  him 
self.  "When  I  go  into  battle,"  Sherman  said  years 


56  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

later,  "I  am  always  worrying  about  what  the  enemy 
is  going  to  do.  Grant  never  gives  a  damn ! "  1 

1  General  James  H.  Wilson  says  that  just  before  the  march  to 
the  sea,  Sherman  said  to  him:  "Wilson,  I  am  a  damned  sight 
smarter  man  than  Grant;  I  know  a  great  deal  more  about  war, 
military  history,  strategy,  and  grand  tactics  than  he  does;  I  know 
more  about  organization,  supply,  and  administration,  and  about 
everything  else  than  he  does;  but  I  '11  tell  you  where  he  beats  me, 
and  where  he  beats  the  world.  He  don't  care  a  damn  for  what 
the  enemy  does  out  of  his  sight,  but  it  scares  me  like  hell! " 
(Under  the  Old  Flag,  vol.  n,  p.  17.) 


CHAPTER  VII 
BRIGADIER-GENERAL 

JOHN  C.  FREMONT,  the  "Pathfinder,"  major-general 
by  reason  of  a  reputation  picturesquely  gained,  a 
dashing  figure,  futile  in  command,  yet  idolized  be 
yond  all  other  Northern  men  at  the  beginning  of  the 
war,  was  at  the  head  of  the  Department  of  the  West 
including  Illinois,  Kentucky,  Kansas,  and  Missouri, 
with  quarters  at  St.  Louis,  —  which  held  the  key  to 
the  strategical  control  of  the  Confederacy,  —  the  wa 
ters  joining  there  within  a  radius  of  a  hundred  miles 
to  form  the  great  flow  of  the  Mississippi,  the  sole  effec 
tive  channels  for  transportation  of  supplies  and  troops. 
McClellan  was  at  Cincinnati.  Scott  was  general-in- 
chief  at  Washington  and  under  him  the  regulars, 
McDowell,  Meigs,  and  Rosecrans.  Grant  under  Fre 
mont,  who  had  a  scant  conception  of  the  strategical 
importance  of  his  own  command,  was  ordered  from 
one  place  to  another  in  Missouri,  knocking  his  regi 
ment  into  shape,  doing  police  duty  at  Ironton,  Jef 
ferson  City,  and  Mexico,  establishing  order  here  and 
there;  for  Claiborne  Jackson's  State  was  desultory 
fighting  ground  by  reason  of  the  close  division  of  the 
population  between  the  sympathizers  with  the  North 


58  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

and  South.  Without  formality  and  by  consent,  be 
cause  he  was  the  only  educated  soldier  in  the  lot  of 
recently  created  colonels,  he  found  himself  com 
mander  of  an  improvised  brigade,  and  then  one  day 
in  early  August,  1861,  his  chaplain  showed  him  a 
news  paragraph  that  Lincoln  had  appointed  him  a 
brigadier.  "It  must  be  some  of  Washburne's  work," 
he  said. 

Elihu  B.  Washburne,  a  "down  East"  Yankee, 
transplanted  early  to  the  West,  had  been  the  Con 
gressman  from  the  Galena  District  since  1852,  one  of 
the  very  earliest  Free-Soilers  or  Republicans  to  get 
office,  so  that  when  his  party  gained  control,  with 
Lincoln  at  the  head,  he  was  a  factor  to  be  reckoned 
with.  Shrewd,  forceful,  rangy,  a  fair  type  of  the  un 
cultured  politician  of  his  time,  serving  the  public 
many  years  in  Congress  and  as  Minister  to  France, 
he  is  known  chiefly  now  because  Grant  was  his  un 
known  neighbor  at  Galena  when  Lincoln  called  for 
troops.  He  saw  Grant  handle  the  Galena  company, 
talked  with  him  about  the  war  and  found  him  full  of 
sense,  gave  him  a  note  to  Yates  and  kept  an  eye  on 
him  when  he  became  a  colonel.  His  unsought  friend 
ship  was  the  nearest  thing  to  "influence"  Grant  ever 
had,  and  Grant  was  right  in  guessing  that  the  ap 
pointment  was  "some  of  Washburne's  work." 

When  Congress  met  in  August  and  Lincoln  had  to 


BRIG  ADIER-GENERAL  59 

send  in  names  of  officers  for  the  new  army,  he  gave 
his  own  State  four  brigadiers  and  asked  the  delega 
tion  in  Washington  to  meet  and  designate  the  men. 
Grant  named  by  Washburne  topped  the  list,  receiv 
ing  every  vote.  The  others  named  were  Hurlbut, 
Prentiss,  and  McClernand  in  the  order  given;  none 
of  whom  had  a  West  Point  training.  Lincoln  sent  in 
these  names  on  August  7,  together  with  thirty-three 
other  brigadiers,  among  whom  Grant  was  number 
seventeen.  Ranking  him  were  Hunter,  Heintzelman, 
Keyes,  Fitz-John  Porter,  Franklin,  Sherman,  Stone, 
Buell,  Lyon,  Pope,  Kearny,  and  Hooker.  The  major- 
generals  were  Scott,  McClellan,  Fremont,  McDowell, 
and  Halleck,  regulars,  with  Dix,  Banks,  and  Butler, 
volunteers. 

Thus  at  the  outset  of  the  war  Grant  was  brigadier, 
unsponsored  it  is  true,  and  guiltless  of  prestige,  but 
placed  without  his  own  design  with  a  detached  com 
mand  at  the  one  key  by  touching  which  the  forces 
could  be  set  in  motion  to  surround  and  crush  the 
armies  of  the  South. 

Others  saw  the  military  value  of  commanding 
rivers  near  the  junction  of  the  Ohio  and  the  Missis 
sippi  as  a  first  step  toward  controlling  the  Mississippi 
to  its  mouth.  Grant  was  the  only  one  to  see  the  ab 
solute  necessity  of  doing  it  at  once  with  just  the  im 
plements  in  hand.  To  him  must  go  the  credit  of 


60  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

achieving  what  the  rest  only  dreamed.  He  trans 
lated  into  terms  of  conquest  the  cry  which  sounded 
through  the  armies  of  the  West:  "The  Rebels  have 
closed  the  Mississippi;  we  must  cut  our  way  to  the 
Gulf  with  our  swords!" 


CHAPTER  VIII 

PADUCAH,   BELMONT 

GENERAL  LEONIDAS  POLK,  the  fighting  Bishop,  com 
manded  the  Confederate  forces  thereabout.  Work 
ing  in  harmony  with  a  comprehensive  military  plan 
evolved  by  the  trained  soldiers  of  the  South,  some 
thing  then  lacking  in  the  North,  he  had  set  out  to 
gain  Kentucky,  a  border  State  still  split  in  sympathy 
between  secession  and  the  Union.  His  eye  was  fixed 
on  Cairo,  at  the  southern  tip  of  Illinois,  where  the 
Ohio  joins  the  Mississippi,  a  vantage-point  of  contact 
with  three  border  States,  and  with  that  end  in  view 
he  seized  Columbus,  twenty  miles  below,  on  the  east 
bank  of  the  Mississippi  just  above  the  boundary  line 
between  Kentucky  and  Tennessee.  On  that  very  day, 
September  4,  as  soon  as  he  could  do  a  task  at  which 
Fremont  had  set  him  in  Missouri,  Grant  pitched  his 
tent  at  Cairo. 

When  he  learned  that  Polk  was  sending  troops  to 
seize  Paducah,  forty-five  miles  up  the  Ohio  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Tennessee,  —  to  hold  which  meant  the 
locking  of  those  rivers  as  the  Mississippi  was  already 
locked,  —  Grant  wired  Fremont  that  he  would  start 
that  night  for  Paducah  if  he  received  no  orders  to 


62  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

the  contrary,  manned  his  boats,  and  hearing  nothing 
from  headquarters  was  on  his  way,  seizing  the  town  at 
daybreak  of  September  6,  anticipating  by  a  few  hours 
Folk's  troops  which  Paducah  had  hoped  to  welcome. 
To  reassure  the  frightened  citizens  he  issued  a  short 
proclamation :  — 

I  have  come  among  you,  not  as  an  enemy,  but  as  your 
friend  and  fellow  citizen,  not  to  injure  or  annoy  you,  but  to 
respect  the  rights  and  to  defend  and  enforce  the  rights  of  all 
loyal  citizens.  An  enemy,  in  rebellion  against  a  common 
government,  has  taken  possession  of  and  planted  its  guns 
upon  the  soil  of  Kentucky  and  fired  upon  your  flag. 
Hickman  and  Columbus  are  in  his  hands.  He  is  moving 
upon  your  city.  I  am  here  to  defend  you  against  this  enemy 
and  to  assert  and  maintain  the  authority  and  sovereignty 
of  your  government  and  mine.  I  have  nothing  to  do  with 
opinions.  I  shall  deal  only  with  armed  rebellion  and  its 
aiders  and  abettors.  You  can  pursue  your  usual  avocations 
without  fear  or  hindrance.  The  strong  arm  of  the  govern 
ment  is  here  to  protect  its  friends,  and  to  punish  only  its 
enemies.  Whenever  it  is  manifest  that  you  are  able  to 
defend  yourselves,  to  maintain  the  authority  of  your  gov 
ernment,  and  protect  the  rights  of  all  its  loyal  citizens,  I 
shall  withdraw  the  forces  under  my  command  from  your 
city. 

He  left  troops  at  Paducah  under  General  Charles 
F.  Smith,  his  old  commander  at  West  Point  and  noti 
fied  the  Kentucky  Legislature,  then  playing  with 
"neutrality"  at  the  state  capital.  The  Legislature 
promptly  adopted  resolutions  favorable  to  the  Union 
and  the  State  was  saved;  on  his  return  to  Cairo  he 


PADUCAH,  BELMONT  63 

found  Fremont's  authority  to  take  Paducah  "if  he 
felt  strong  enough,"  a  reprimand  for  corresponding 
with  the  Legislature,  and  a  warning  against  doing 
it  again. 

He  could  have  seized  Columbus  then  and  wanted 
to,  but  Fremont  kept  him  for  two  months  at  Cairo, 
and  by  November  Polk  was  so  intrenched  that  he  was 
strong  enough  to  hold  his  own  against  a  siege  and  to 
assist  the  rebel  forces  in  Missouri  stirring  trouble  un 
der  Generals  Earl  Van  Dorn  and  Sterling  Price.  Be 
sides,  by  Fremont's  order  Grant  had  sent  three  thou 
sand  men  under  Dick  Oglesby  to  chase  guerrillas 
in  Missouri  and  Oglesby  must  be  protected  in  the 
rear. 

It  was  to  keep  Polk  engaged  at  home  that  Grant 
sailed  down  the  river,  on  November  7,  with  three 
thousand  men  to  reconnoiter  at  a  little  camp  of  shan 
ties  just  opposite  Columbus  bearing  the  pretentious 
name  of  Belmont,  where  Polk  had  put  twenty-five 
hundred  men  who,  resting  under  the  protection  of  his 
batteries,  were  ready  for  quick  expeditions.  Instead 
of  simply  reconnoitering,  Grant,  sensing  what  Polk 
had  in  mind,  landed  with  his  troops,  dispersed  the 
enemy,  and  seized  the  camp  —  his  first  real  fighting 
for  the  war.  He  would  have  demanded  the  surrender 
of  the  beaten  forces  and  withdrawn,  his  task  com 
pleted,  had  not  his  green  troops,  their  heads  turned  by 


64  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

what  seemed  a  striking  victory,  become  a  jubilant 
mob,  ransacking  the  camp  for  souvenirs,  reddening 
the  day  with  speeches,  cheers,  and  songs,  and  uncon 
trollable  till  Grant,  with  genius  born  of  common 
sense,  set  matches  to  the  tents,  the  flames  from  which 
invited  fire  from  the  Columbus  batteries  and  rein 
forcements  from  the  fort,  giving  the  enemy  a  chance 
to  rally.  His  men,  surrounded  and  attacked,  were 
ready  now  for  orders,  but  they  would  have  sur 
rendered  had  not  Grant,  saying  grimly  that  they  had 
cut  their  way  in  and  could  cut  their  way  out,  forced 
them  fighting  to  the  boats,  he  with  a  private's  blouse, 
his  horse  shot  under  him,  embarking  last  of  all  and 
nearly  left  behind. 

McClernand,  soldier  politician,  who  was  there  with 
Grant,  issued  a  vainglorious  address  to  his  command 
on  his  return  to  Cairo.  But  Grant  said  nothing  save 
to  his  father,  to  whom  he  wrote  next  day:  "Tak 
ing  into  account  the  object  of  the  expedition  the 
victory  was  most  complete.  It  has  given  me  a  confi 
dence  in  the  officers  and  men  of  this  command  that 
will  enable  me  to  lead  them  in  any  future  engagement 
without  fear  of  the  result."  The  newspapers  of 
Illinois  were  filled  with  tales  of  how  McClernand 
saved  the  day.  Grant  let  him  have  his  little  glory  with 
the  folks  at  home  and  would  not  enter  on  a  contro 
versy.  It  was  a  local  rivalry  at  best,  for  neither  gen- 


GRANT  AS  A  BRIGADIER-GENERAL 
November,  1861 

From  tin-  i-ollt'i'tion  of  Frederick  Hill  Menem 


PADUCAH,  BELMONT  65 

eral  was  known  outside  the  State,  and  news  of  Bel- 
mont  did  not  excite  the  East. 

The  country's  gloomy  face  was  turned  toward  the 
Potomac  and  the  James,  waiting  for  victories  to  wipe 
out  Bull  Run,  while  McClellan  at  the  head  of  his 
great  army  was  wearing  out  its  patience  marching  up 
and  down.  Belmont  with  its  loss  of  life  was  criticized 
for  years  as  an  unnecessary  fight.  It  was  not  intended 
for  a  battle,  but  a  demonstration.  If  Belmont  had  not 
been  fought,  said  Grant  years  later,  "Colonel  Oglesby 
would  probably  have  been  captured  or  destroyed 
with  his  three  thousand  men.  Then  I  should  have 
been  culpable  indeed." 

Besides,  we  should  have  missed  an  episode  unique 
and  picturesque,  illustrating  the  peculiar  temper  of 
the  time. 


CHAPTER  IX 

DONELSON 

THIRTEEN  more  weeks  of  waiting,  not  altogether 
wasted  because  the  time  was  used  in  drilling  troops  at 
Cairo  and  teaching  officers  the  ways  of  war. 

There  were  few  regulars  in  Grant's  command. 
The  South  had  scattered  its  West  Point  graduates 
throughout  its  service,  so  that  the  volunteers  had 
the  advantage  of  instruction  by  trained  officers.  The 
educated  soldiers  of  the  North  had  kept  their  old 
commands  and  rank  until  the  war  had  lasted  many 
months,  and  while  there  was  one  whole  "regular 
brigade"  in  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  in  which  every 
officer,  from  general  to  second  lieutenant,  had  been 
educated  in  his  profession,  there  were  elsewhere 
entire  divisions  serving  under  commanders  who  had 
had  no  military  training.  Grant,  face  to  face  with 
such  conditions,  suggested  while  at  Cairo  that, 
except  for  the  staff  corps,  the  regular  army  should  be 
disbanded  and  the  officers  detailed  to  lead  and  drill 
the  volunteers,  a  condition  brought  about  through 
natural  process  as  the  war  progressed. 

Grant  was  not  alone  in  trouble  with  Fremont. 
Lincoln  was  having  difficulty  too.  The  more  Fre- 


DONELSON  67 

mont  displayed  his  pompous  incapacity,  the  harder 
for  his  chief  to  handle  him,  and  he  was  bright  enough 
to  play  spectacularly  upon  the  anti-slavery  senti 
ment,  which  looked  upon  him  as  the  champion  of  the 
negro's  cause,  while  those  above  him  would  subordi 
nate  it  if  thereby  the  Union  might  be  saved.  On 
August  30  came  the  final  test  of  patience.  In  that 
morning's  paper  Lincoln  was  amazed  to  read  a  procla 
mation  issued  by  Fremont  confiscating  the  property 
of  all  persons  in  Missouri  who  had  taken  active  part 
with  the  enemies  of  the  United  States,  and  declaring 
free  their  slaves,  —  a  proclamation  hailed  with  joy 
throughout  the  North,  but  with  dismay  by  the  Ad 
ministration,  which  knew  that  Kentucky  and  the 
other  border  States  would  not  hold  to  the  Union  if 
they  thought  their  slaves  were  to  be  free. 

To  Lincoln  Fremont's  proclamation  meant  defi 
ance  and  a  usurpation  of  legislative  power,  but 
patiently  he  asked  Fremont  to  modify  it;  at  Fre 
mont's  request  issued  himself  the  modifying  order, 
and  brought  down  on  his  head  the  North's  denuncia 
tion  with  threatenings  of  impeachment.  Some  would 
have  made  Fremont  dictator.  "How  many  times," 
wrote  James  Russell  Lowell,  "are  we  to  save  Ken 
tucky  and  lose  our  self-respect?  "  Such  was  the  spirit 
Lincoln  faced  in  the  first  months  of  war.  In  view  of 
the  part  politics  so  largely  played  in  the  conduct 


68  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

of  the  war,  only  incorrigible  ineptitude  could  have 
elicited  the  order  issued  two  days  after  Belmont, 
putting  Halleck  in  Fremont's  place. 

To  Grant  the  substitution  was  of  little  benefit. 
Halleck,  an  educated  West  Point  soldier,  of  great 
learning,  a  master  of  the  technique  of  war,  —  "Old 
Brains"  they  called  him,  —  had  been  for  years  a 
San  Francisco  lawyer,  having  seen  service  in  Mexico. 
He  had  just  been  made  a  major-general  of  volunteers, 
and  great  things  were  expected  of  him.  He  was  a 
pundit,  not  a  fighter;  his  big  head  stuffed  with 
strategy,  but  not  alive  with  wit.  He  had  no  aptitude 
for  such  emergencies  as  now  confronted  him  in  an 
unusual  kind  of  war.  He  never  learned  what  Gibbon 
had  in  mind  when  he  declared  a  century  before  that 
"the  great  battles  won  by  the  lessons  of  tactics  may 
be  enumerated  by  the  epic  poems  composed  from  the 
inspirations  of  rhetoric."  To  Halleck,  Grant,  with 
his  plain,  practical  ideas,  was  a  specimen  unclassified, 
and  besides,  there  was  a  lurking  memory  of  the  way 
Grant  quit  the  service  on  the  coast. 

Grant,  left  to  vegetate  at  Cairo,  weary  of  inaction, 
at  last  sought  Halleck  out.  He  had  a  scheme  for 
opening  a  roadway  through  the  South  and  pushing 
back  the  first  line  of  defense,  which  Smith,  his  old 
West  Point  preceptor,  had  approved,  to  his  great 
satisfaction,  and  he  thought  it  merited  consideration 


DONELSON  69 

higher  up.  But  having  grudgingly  been  granted  leave 
to  visit  Halleck,  he  met  scant  courtesy.  "I  was 
received  with  so  little  cordiality  that  I  perhaps  stated 
the  object  of  my  visit  with  less  clearness  than  I  might 
have  done,  and  I  had  not  uttered  many  sentences 
before  I  was  cut  short  as  if  my  plan  was  preposterous. 
I  returned  to  Cairo  very  much  crestfallen." 

The  "preposterous"  plan  was  this:  Albert  Sidney 
Johnston,  in  chief  command  west  of  the  Alleghanies, 
had  established  the  outward  defensive  line  of  the 
Confederacy  in  southern  Kentucky  stretching  from 
Columbus  on  the  Mississippi  to  the  Cumberland  Gap 
in  eastern  Tennessee.  Along  this  line  strongholds  had 
been  set  up  at  Fort  Henry  and  Fort  Donelson  com 
manding  respectively  the  Tennessee  and  Cumber 
land  just  where  those  rivers,  coming  toward  each 
other  in  the  State  of  Tennessee,  begin  running  par 
allel  through  Kentucky  to  the  Ohio.  The  two  forts 
were  only  twelve  miles  apart.  Other  outposts  were 
at  Bowling  Green,  ninety  miles  northeast  of  Donel 
son,  and  at  Mill  Springs,  a  hundred  miles  still  farther 
east,  guarding  the  approach  to  the  Cumberland 
Mountains.  Buckner  was  Confederate  commander  at 
Bowling  Green,  Zollicoffer  at  Mill  Springs.  Thomas 
watching  Mill  Springs  commanded  the  Union  left, 
Buell  at  Louisville  watching  Bowling  Green,  the 
Union  center;  Grant  was  in  command  at  Cairo  on 


70  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

the  Union  right;  while  Polk  was  at  Columbus  and 
Gideon  J.  Pillow  at  Donelson —  Pillow,  whom  Grant 
had  known  in  Mexico,  of  whom,  while  still  a  han 
ger-on  at  Springfield,  he  had  written  with  contempt 
that,  as  "he  would  find  it  necessary  to  receive  a 
wound  on  the  first  discharge  of  firearms,  he  would 
not  be  a  formidable  enemy." 

The  weak  point  of  the  Confederate  line  was  the  dis 
trict  including  Donelson  and  Henry,  where  those  two 
forts  alone  held  back  the  Federal  navy  from  running 
up  the  Cumberland  and  Tennessee  as  far  as  Nash 
ville  and  Savannah  and  beyond.  General  Charles 
F.  Smith,  at  Paducah,  under  Grant,  commanded  the 
little  district  at  the  mouth  of  these  two  rivers,  and 
Grant's  plan  after  conference  with  him  and  Foote, 
commander  of  our  queer  little  fleet,  was  to  sail  up  the 
river,  seize  Fort  Henry,  and  so  indent  the  South's  line 
of  defense  —  forcing  the  Union  front  southward  to 
Alabama.  Sherman  and  Buell  had  thought  of  this, 
and  spoke  of  it  to  Halleck :  McClellan,  in  command  at 
Washington,  believed  in  it  on  paper,  but  with  his 
passion  for  delay  thought  eastern  Tennessee  should 
first  be  occupied. 

"There  has  been  much  discussion  as  to  who  origi 
nated  the  movement  up  the  Tennessee  River,"  writes 
Colonel  William  Preston  Johnston,  in  his  biography 
of  his  father.  "Grant  made  it,  and  it  made  Grant." 


DONELSON  71 

And  Grant  himself  wrote  Washburne,  within  a  month 
of  the  event :  "  I  see  the  credit  of  attacking  the  enemy 
by  the  way  of  the  Tennessee  and  Cumberland  is  vari 
ously  attributed.  It  is  little  to  talk  about  it  being  the 
great  wisdom  of  any  general  that  first  brought  forth 
this  line  of  attack.  Our  gunboats  were  running  up  the 
Tennessee  and  Cumberland  Rivers  all  fall  and  winter 
watching  the  progress  of  the  rebels  on  these  waters. 
General  Halleck  no  doubt  thought  of  this  route  long 
ago,  and  I  am  sure  I  did."  But  Halleck  thought  he 
needed  sixty  thousand  men  to  carry  out  whatever 
dilatory  scheme  he  had  in  mind,  three  times  as  many 
as  there  were  with  Grant,  and  if  an  army  big  enough 
for  Halleck  had  been  handy,  he  would  rather  not  have 
picked  Grant  for  the  job. 

Thomas,  in  middle  January,  1862,  took  Mill 
Springs,  a  rare  little  victory  which  gave  the  North 
new  heart,  quite  out  of  keeping  with  its  real  signifi 
cance,  and  Grant  grew  more  impatient  to  try  out  his 
plan.  He  wired  to  Halleck,  Foote  cooperating,  that 
"if  permitted"  he  could  take  and  hold  Fort  Henry; 
and  on  the  1st  of  February  he  was  given  leave  to  move. 
He  started  the  next  day,  and  on  the  morning  of  the 
6th  the  fort  surrendered,  guns  abandoned,  garrison  in 
full  retreat  to  Donelson.  "Fort  Henry  is  ours,"  he 
wired  to  Halleck;  "the  gunboats  silenced  the  batteries 
before  the  investment  was  completed."  Then,  with- 


72  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

out  orders  or  permission,  for  Halleck,  thinking  Grant 
would  stay  at  Henry  and  intrench  it,  had  never  men 
tioned  Donelson  to  him,  he  set  out  for  the  Cumber 
land  at  once,  wiring  Halleck,  "  I  shall  take  and  destroy 
Fort  Donelson  on  the  8th  and  return  to  Fort  Henry." 
His  fifteen  thousand  men  that  day,  he  felt,  could  do 
more  service  than  three  times  the  number  a  month 
hence  against  a  strengthened  garrison. 

John  B.  Floyd,  Buchanan's  traitorous  War  Secre 
tary,  who  the  preceding  winter  had  depleted  Northern 
arsenals  to  strengthen  Southern  forts,  had  just  been 
sent  by  Johnston  to  command  at  Donelson;  Pillow 
was  under  him;  Grant  knew  both,  and  he  was  not 
afraid.  It  was  a  cruel  week  in  February,  warm  by 
day,  then  overnight  quick  snow  and  sleet,  with 
mercury  not  far  from  zero;  the  Union  forces  without 
shelter  and  inadequately  clothed.  But  Grant  with 
his  inferior  force  invested  Donelson,  the  garrison  ap 
parently  asleep  till  on  the  15th  Floyd  and  Pillow  led 
out  their  men.  There  was  a  desperate  battle,  the 
Union  forces  beaten  back  till  Grant,  who  on  a  gun 
boat  had  been  counseling  with  Foote,  rode  on  the 
field.  His  men,  discouraged,  told  him  the  enemy  had 
come  out  with  haversacks  and  knapsacks  as  evidence 
that  they  were  prepared  to  fight  for  several  days. 
But  he  was  imperturbable.  Examining  a  haversack 
he  found  it  filled  with  three  days'  rations;  supplies 


DONELSON  73 

for  flight.  He  realized  at  once  that  the  despairing 
garrison,  in  order  to  avoid  surrender,  were  cutting 
their  way  out.  "They  have  no  idea  of  staying  here 
to  fight  us,"  he  said;  "whichever  side  attacks  first 
now  will  win."  Convinced  of  this,  he  turned  his 
troops  against  the  fort,  Smith,  Wallace,  and  Mc- 
Clefnand  fighting  splendidly. 

Smith  with  his  men  swept  up  the  ridge  and  seized 
the  rifle-pits;  the  Southerners  were  driven  back  into 
the  fort  where  that  night  was  enacted  a  curious,  dis 
creditable  scene.  Pillow  and  Floyd,  with  Buckner, 
who  was  there  with  reinforcements,  decided  at  a 
council  that  their  force  must  be  surrendered.  Floyd, 
under  indictment  at  Washington  for  embezzling 
public  funds,  was  obsessed  with  the  belief  that  if  the 
Yankees  captured  him,  he  would  be  hanged  for  trea 
son,  and  the  vain  Pillow  likewise  thought  the  Yankees 
eager  for  his  head.  They  begged  Buckner,  one  of  the 
bravest  soldiers  of  the  South,  to  take  command,  and 
under  cover  of  the  night  fled  down  the  Cumberland 
to  Nashville,  leaving  Buckner  to  receive  the  enemy 
as  best  he  could. 

So  Buckner  sent  his  flag  of  truce  asking  for  terms 
and  for  an  armistice,  and  Grant  sent  back  the  mes 
sage  which  electrified  the  North,  "  No  terms  except  an 
unconditional  and  immediate  surrender  can  be  ac 
cepted.  I  propose  to  move  immediately  upon  your 


74  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

works";  bringing  the  prompt  response,  "The  dis 
tribution  of  the  forces  under  my  command,  incident 
to  an  unexpected  change  of  commanders,  compel  me, 
notwithstanding  the  brilliant  success  of  the  Confed 
erate  arms  yesterday,  to  accept  the  ungenerous  and 
unchivalrous  terms  which  you  propose." 

Grant  saw  Buckner  now  for  the  first  time  since 
Buckner  had  helped  him  in  New  York  when  penni 
less,  eight  years  before.  "He  said  to  me  that  if  he  had 
been  in  command  I  would  not  have  got  up  to  Donel- 
son  as  easily  as  I  did.  I  told  him  that  if  he  had  been 
in  command  I  should  not  have  tried  in  the  way  I 
did."  Grant  does  not  relate  an  incident,  which  comes 
with  better  grace  from  Buckner's  lips:  "He  left  the 
officers  of  his  own  army  and  followed  me  with  that 
modest  manner  peculiar  to  himself  into  the  shadow, 
and  there  tendered  me  his  purse.  ...  In  the  modesty 
of  his  nature  he  was  afraid  the  light  would  witness 
that  act  of  generosity,  and  sought  to  hide  it  from 
the  world." 

There  is  a  passage  in  the  "Memoirs"  which  from 
every  aspect  does  human  nature  credit:  "General 
Sherman  had  been  sent  to  Smithland,  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Cumberland  River,  to  forward  reinforcements 
and  supplies  to  me.  At  that  time  he  was  my  senior 
in  rank,  and  there  was  no  authority  of  law  to  assign 
a  junior  to  command  a  senior  of  the  same  grade.  But 


DONELSON  75 

every  boat  that  came  up  with  supplies  or  reinforce 
ments  brought  a  note  of  encouragement  from  Sher 
man,  asking  me  to  call  upon  him  for  any  assistance 
he  could  render  and  saying  that  if  he  could  be  of  serv 
ice  at  the  front  I  might  send  for  him  and  he  would 
waive  rank." 

More  men  fought  at  Donelson  than  ever  before  on 
American  soil.  It  was  the  first  substantial  victory 
for  the  Union  forces  after  nine  months  of  procrastina 
tion  and  defeat.  Grant,  who  had  been  unknown  the 
week  before  outside  the  jurisdiction  of  his  own  de 
partment,  was  by  a  flash  on  February  17,  1862,  the 
military  idol  of  the  day.  In  "Unconditional  Sur 
render"  his  countrymen  at  last  had  found  a  rallying 
cry.  Yet  they  had  faint  conception  of  what  had  really 
been  achieved  by  Grant  in  opening  the  Cumberland 
and  the  Tennessee. 


CHAPTER  X 

UNDER  A   CLOUD 

WITH  Donelson  and  Henry  under  Grant's  control, 
the  whole  line  from  the  Appalachians  to  the  Missis 
sippi  crumbled  like  a  shell.  The  indentation  carried 
the  Union  forces  into  Nashville,  which  Johnston, 
having  already  abandoned  Bowling  Green,  could  no 
longer  hold.  Polk  had  to  quit  Columbus,  and  re 
tired  to  Island  No.  10,  a  hundred  miles  below.  Mill 
Springs  was  gone.  The  Confederacy  was  pressed  back 
to  its  second  line,  reaching  easterly  from  Memphis 
through  Corinth  and  Chattanooga,  and  northeasterly 
through  Knoxville  along  the  Cumberland  Mountains 
to  Virginia.  The  Northern  people  saw  one  outpost  fall 
and  then  another,  till  it  seemed  to  them  like  wizardry, 
and  in  the  quick  reaction  they  looked  for  speedy  and 
complete  success.  But  they  took  poor  account  of 
Vicksburg  and  the  military  problems  it  involved, 
and  they  knew  little  about  service  jealousies. 

All  the  world  was  praising  Grant  but  Halleck,  who 
was  for  praising  everybody  else.  Three  days  after 
Donelson  he  wired  to  Stanton:  "Smith,  by  his  cool 
ness  and  bravery  at  Fort  Donelson,  when  the  battle 
was  against  us,  turned  the  tide  and  carried  the 


UNDER   A  CLOUD  77 

enemy's  outworks.  Make  him  a  major-general.  You 
can't  get  a  better  one.  Honor  him  for  this  victory, 
and  the  whole  country  will  applaud."  Nothing  was 
said  of  Grant.  He  wired  congratulations  to  Foote 
for  his  work  with  the  fleet  and  to  Hunter,  who  had 
simply  sent  from  Kansas  prompt  reinforcements  — 
but  not  a  word  to  Grant.  Later,  when  he  caught  the 
temper  of  the  North,  he  wired :  "  Make  Buell,  Grant, 
and  Pope  major-generals  of  volunteers."  He  wired 
McClellan  on  the  26th:  "I  must  have  command  of 
the  armies  in  the  West.  Hesitation  and  delay  are 
losing  us  the  golden  opportunity.  .  .  .  Answer  quick." 
Neither  Buell  nor  Pope,  good  soldiers,  had  seen  fight 
ing  then,  and  Halleck  never  did. 

It  was  a  plain  discrimination,  and  Lincoln,  appre 
ciating  the  proprieties,  sent  in  Grant's  name  alone,  as 
major-general  of  volunteers  dating  from  February  16. 
There  should  be  no  mistake  about  the  cause  of  his  pro 
motion.  Five  weeks  later  came  McClernand,  Smith, 
and  Wallace,  with  Buell  and  Pope ;  and  still  later, 
Thomas,  who  would  have  had  the  earlier  recognition 
he  deserved  had  it  not  been  for  Stanton's  unac 
countable  distrust.  Grant  had  now  fought  his  way 
unfriended  to  a  rank  well  toward  the  top. 

Now  comes  a  painful  episode  in  Grant's  career ; 
Halleck  seemed  incapable  of  letting  him  alone.  While 
still  in  front  of  Donelson  he  had  been  assigned  to  the 


78  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

command  of  the  new  military  district  of  West  Ten 
nessee,  with  "Limits  not  defined."  It  was  uncertain 
where  his  jurisdiction  overlapped  with  Buell's;  and 
on  the  28th  of  February,  after  wiring  Halleck  that, 
without  orders  to  the  contrary,  he  should  go  at  once 
to  Nashville,  Grant  went  there  to  consult  with  Buell 
at  the  place  which  was  to  be  a  center  of  activity.  The 
next  day  he  returned  to  Donelson,  and  on  March  3 
got  orders  to  move  his  whole  command  back  to  Fort 
Henry  with  a  view  to  an  expedition  up  the  Tennes 
see  to  capture  Corinth,  the  most  important  outpost 
in  the  South's  new  defensive  line,  protecting  Memphis 
and  Vicksburg  upon  which  Grant  for  weeks  had  had 
his  eye. 

The  next  day  to  his  amazement  Halleck  wired: 
"You  will  place  Major-General  C.  F.  Smith  in  com 
mand  of  the  expedition  and  remain  yourself  at  Fort 
Henry.  Why  do  you  not  obey  my  orders  to  report 
strength  and  position  of  your  command?"  He  had 
not  disobeyed  any  order,  had  reported  daily  the  con 
dition  of  his  command,  had  reported  every  position 
occupied,  and  so  wired  Halleck;  but  on  the  6th  came 
this  reply:  "Your  neglect  of  repeated  orders  to  report 
the  strength  of  your  command  has  created  great 
dissatisfaction  and  seriously  interfered  with  military 
plans.  Your  going  to  Nashville  without  authority, 
and  when  your  presence  with  your  troops  was  of  the 


UNDER    A    CLOUD  79 

utmost  importance,  was  a  matter  of  very  serious  com 
plaint  at  Washington,  so  much  so  that  I  was  advised 
to  arrest  you  on  your  return." 

"I  did  all  I  could  to  get  you  returns  of  the  strength 
of  my  command,"  Grant,  mystified,  wired  back. 
"  Every  move  I  made  was  reported  daily  to  your  chief 
of  staff,  who  must  have  failed  to  keep  you  properly 
posted.  I  have  done  my  very  best  to  obey  orders  and 
to  carry  out  the  interests  of  the  service.  If  my  course 
is  not  satisfactory  remove  me  at  once.  I  do  not  wish 
in  any  way  to  impede  the  success  of  our  arms.  .  .  . 
My  going  to  Nashville  was  strictly  intended  for  the 
good  of  the  service,  and  not  to  gratify  any  desire  of 
my  own.  Believing  sincerely  that  I  must  have  ene 
mies  between  you  and  myself  who  are  trying  to  im 
pair  my  usefulness,  I  respectfully  ask  to  be  relieved 
from  further  duty  in  the  department." 

Then  followed  daily  messages  between  the  two; 
Grant  urging  that  he  be  relieved,  Halleck  retreating 
slowly  from  his  stand;  and  finally,  when  ordered  by 
the  President  summarily  to  send  a  full  report  to 
Washington,  retracting  grudgingly,  restoring  Grant 
to  his  command.  "As  he  acted  from  a  praiseworthy 
although  mistaken  zeal  for  the  public  service  in  going 
to  Nashville  and  leaving  his  command,"  he  wired  the 
Adjutant-General  on  March  13,  "I  respectfully  rec 
ommend  that  no  further  notice  be  taken  of  it." 


80  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

In  his  dispatches  to  Grant,  Halleck  had  let  the  re 
sponsibility  for  the  misadventure  rest  with  McClel- 
lan,  and  Grant  accordingly  was  duly  grateful  to 
Halleck  for  having  set  him  right.  After  the  war  the 
truth  came  out  through  McClellan's  revelation  of 
Halleck's  original  complaint. l 

"  I  have  had  no  communication  with  General  Grant 
for  more  than  a  week,"  he  had  wired  McClellan  on 
March  2.  "He  left  his  command  without  my  au 
thority  and  went  to  Nashville.  His  army  seems  to  be 
as  much  demoralized  by  the  victory  of  Fort  Donel- 
son  as  was  that  of  the  Potomac  by  the  defeat  of 
Bull  Run.  It  is  hard  to  censure  a  successful  general 
immediately  after  a  victory,  but  I  think  he  richly 
deserves  it.  I  can  get  no  returns,  no  reports,  no  in 
formation  of  any  kind  from  him.  Satisfied  with  his 
victory  he  sits  down  and  enjoys  it  without  regard  to 
the  future.  I  am  worn  out  and  tired  with  this  neg 
lect  and  inefficiency.  C.  F.  Smith  is  almost  the  only 
officer  equal  to  the  emergency." 

To  this  McClellan  replied:  "The  success  of  our 
cause  demands  that  proceedings  such  as  Grant's 
should  be  at  once  checked.  Generals  must  observe 
discipline  as  well  as  private  soldiers.  Do  not  hesitate 
to  arrest  him  at  once  if  the  good  of  the  service  re 
quires  it,  and  place  C.  F.  Smith  in  command.  You 
1  McClellan  s  Own  Story,  p.  216. 


UNDER   A   CLOUD  81 

are  at  liberty  to  regard  this  as  a  positive  order  if  it 
will  smooth  your  way."  In  replying  to  which  Halleck 
intimated,  perhaps,  the  real  secret  of  his  dislike:  "A 
rumor  has  just  reached  me  that  since  the  taking  of 
Fort  Donelson  Grant  has  resumed  his  former  bad 
habits.  If  so  it  will  account  for  his  repeated  neglect 
of  my  oft-repeated  orders.  I  do  not  deem  it  advisable 
to  arrest  him  at  present,  but  have  placed  General 
Smith  in  command  of  the  expedition  up  the  Tennes 
see.  I  think  Smith  will  restore  order  and  discipline.'* 

Grant  subsequently  learned  that  some  of  his  re 
ports  to  Halleck  had  been  held  up  at  Cairo,  but 
this  mishap  would  not  excuse  his  summary  execu 
tion  without  a  chance  to  enter  a  defense. 

There  is  a  nice  adjustment  of  justice  with  delicacy 
of  feeling  in  this  comment  in  his  "Memoirs":  "Gen 
eral  Halleck  unquestionably  deemed  General  C.  F. 
Smith  a  much  fitter  officer  for  the  command  of  all 
the  forces  in  the  military  district  than  I  was,  and,  to 
render  him  available  for  such  command,  desired  his 
promotion  to  antedate  mine  and  those  of  the  other 
division  commanders.  It  is  probable  that  the  general 
opinion  was  that  Smith's  long  services  in  the  army 
and  distinguished  deeds  rendered  him  the  most 
proper  person  for  such  command.  Indeed,  I  was 
rather  inclined  to  this  opinion  myself  at  that  time, 
and  would  have  served  as  faithfully  under  Smith  as 


82  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

he  had  done  under  me.  But  this  did  not  justify  the 
dispatches  which  General  Halleck  sent  to  Washing 
ton  or  his  subsequent  concealment  of  them  from  me 
when  pretending  to  explain  the  action  of  my  supe 
riors." 

In  disgrace  at  Fort  Henry,  Grant  had  congratu 
lated  Smith  on  turning  over  the  command  and  wrote 
him,  "Anything  you  may  require,  send  back  trans 
ports  for  and  if  within  my  power  you  shall  have  it." 
There  could  be  no  jealousy  between  Grant  and  Smith. 
Grant's  feeling  for  his  old  commander  was  almost 
one  of  awe,  and  when  Smith  first  had  come  under  his 
command  he  found  it  hard  to  give  him  orders.  It 
was  for  the  elder  in  service,  now  lower  in  rank,  to 
relieve  Grant's  embarrassment.  "  I  am  now  a  subor 
dinate,"  he  delicately  said;  "I  know  a  soldier's  duty. 
I  hope  you  will  feel  no  awkwardness  about  our  new 
relations."  Smith  died  in  a  few  weeks  from  hardships 
at  Fort  Donelson.  He  was  too  ill  to  serve  at  Shiloh. 
Sherman  said  once  that  if  "Smith  had  been  spared 
us  Grant  would  never  have  been  heard  of";  he  sub 
sequently  took  it  back,  but  with  this  early  estimate 
Grant  would  then  have  agreed. 


CHAPTER  XI 

SHILOH 

"My  opinion  was  and  still  is  that  immediately  after 
the  fall  of  Fort  Donelson  the  way  was  opened  to  the 
National  forces  all  over  the  Southwest  without  much 
resistance.  If  one  general  who  would  have  taken  the 
responsibility  had  been  in  command  of  all  the  troops 
west  of  the  Alleghanies,  he  could  have  marched 
to  Chattanooga,  Corinth,  Memphis,  and  Vicksburg 
with  the  troops  we  then  had;  and  as  volunteering 
was  going  on  rapidly  over  the  North  there  would 
soon  have  been  force  enough  at  all  those  centers  to 
operate  offensively  against  any  body  of  the  enemy 
that  might  be  found  near  them.  .  .  .  Providence 
ruled  differently.  Time  was  given  the  enemy  to  col 
lect  armies  and  fortify  his  new  positions."  Thus 
Grant  has  placed  himself  on  record,  and  thus  it 
might  have  happened  with  Grant  himself  or  Charles 
F.  Smith  in  sole  command,  but  not  with  Halleck. 

Having  smashed  the  South 's  defensive  line  at  Don 
elson,  the  armies  of  the  West  turned  next  to  Corinth, 
a  little  town  in  northern  Mississippi  of  strategical 
importance  because  two  railroads  came  together 
there  which,  thus  connecting,  brought  Memphis  on 


84  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

the  Mississippi  and  Mobile  on  the  Gulf  in  touch 
with  Charleston  and  the  South  Atlantic  States. 
So  long  as  the  Confederates  had  Corinth,  they  had 
the  base  for  a  campaign  to  keep  the  lower  Missis 
sippi  under  their  control  and  hold  the  Northern 
forces  back.  Beauregard,  summoned  from  Virginia 
with  the  prestige  of  success,  was  there  already  and 
other  generals  were  on  the  way  —  all  to  be  under  the 
command  of  Albert  Sidney  Johnston,  still  in  good 
favor  with  the  Cabinet  at  Richmond  in  spite  of  the 
catastrophe  at  Donelson  and  his  enforced  retreat. 
When  men  from  Tennessee  asked  for  another  general, 
Davis  had  replied:  "If  Sidney  Johnston  is  not  a  gen 
eral,  the  Confederacy  has  none  to  give  you.'*  Center 
ing  at  Corinth  were  nearly  fifty  thousand  men. 

Halleck  had  formed  ambitious  plans.  Command 
ing  all  the  armies  in  the  West  he  was  to  lead  in 
person  the  armies  of  the  Tennessee  and  the  Ohio,  with 
Grant  and  Buell  serving  under  him.  He  would  have 
chosen  Charles  F.  Smith  instead  of  Grant  if  Wash 
ington  had  let  him,  but  Smith  was  laid  up  at  Sa 
vannah  on  the  Tennessee,  sick  with  the  injury  re 
ceived  at  Donelson  of  which  he  shortly  died. 

The  move  on  Corinth  was  to  be  assault  by  Hal- 
leek's  armies;  but  events  precipitated  battle  on  a 
field  where  Grant  and  Halleck  had  not  planned  to 
fight.  Smith,  while  Grant  was  undergoing  punish- 


SHILOH  85 

ment  at  Halleck's  hands,  had  chosen  as  a  rendezvous 
for  the  Union  armies  a  bluff  at  Pittsburg  Landing, 
twenty  miles  northeast  of  Corinth  on  the  west  bank 
of  the  Tennessee,  preferring  that  place  to  Savannah, 
on  the  eastern  bank  and  nine  miles  farther  north,  as 
Halleck  had  designed.  Grant  picked  the  Landing  also 
on  the  theory  that,  as  the  plan  was  to  attack  and 
crush  the  enemy,  the  west  side  of  the  river  was  the 
place  from  which  to  strike.  It  would  never  do  to  let 
the  Southern  troops  possess  the  bluff.  He  would  wait 
there  for  Buell,  when  their  united  forces  could  ad 
vance  on  Corinth.  His  troops  were  at  the  Land 
ing,  but  he  continued  temporary  quarters  for  him 
self  at  Savannah  where  Buell  was  expected  hourly  to 
arrive. 

But  Beauregard  and  Johnston,  instead  of  waiting 
for  attack  at  Corinth  where  they  were  intrenched, 
moved  down  the  river  to  the  western  bank  in  order 
to  catch  Grant  before  Buell  could  arrive;  and  on 
a  muddy,  foggy  Sunday  morning,  April  6,  1862, 
Johnston's  army  of  forty  thousand,  under  cover  of  the 
forest  and  the  night  having  come  up  to  the  Union 
lines,  brought  on  one  of  the  deadliest  battles  of  the 
war.  McClernand,  Sherman,  Hurlbut,  Prentiss,  and 
William  Wallace,  who  was  temporarily  commanding 
Smith's  division,  were  encamped  around  Pittsburg 
Landing.  Others  were  close  at  hand,  —  Lew  Wai- 


86  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

lace  at  Crump's  Landing,  five  miles  below;  Nelson, 
one  of  Buell's  generals,  who  had  arrived  the  day  be 
fore,  camped  near  Savannah  on  the  eastern  bank; 
thirty  thousand  men  in  all  potentially  at  Grant's 
disposal,  while  Buell  with  as  many  more  was  on  the 
way.  McClernand  and  Lew  Wallace  were  major- 
generals,  the  rest  brigadiers. 

Grant,  for  two  days  on  crutches  from  a  fall,  was  at 
Savannah  looking  for  Buell  whom  he  expected  there 
that  day;  at  breakfast  he  heard  the  firing  at  the  front 
and  started  on  a  boat  at  once  for  Pittsburg  Landing 
where  he  found  the  battle  on.  The  Union  camp  was 
not  intrenched.  The  Western  armies  had  not  learned 
the  habit  then;  while  Grant,  convinced  like  all  the 
rest,  that  Johnston  would  make  his  stand  at  Corinth, 
thought  his  raw  troops  would  be  less  advantageously 
employed  in  digging  than  in  drill  and  discipline.  The 
Southern  troops  poured  in  over  an  exposed  line  about 
three  miles  from  Pittsburg  near  a  log-cabin  meeting 
house  called  Shiloh,  where  Sherman  was  encamped; 
and  here  the  battle  raged  ferociously,  giving  a  name 
to  the  day's  engagement. 

Sherman's  men,  experiencing  their  first  battle, 
thrown  into  confusion  and  losing  their  identity  as 
a  division,  mixed  themselves  with  McClernand's 
troops;  and  two  divisions,  scrambled  into  one,  took 
orders  indiscriminately  from  the  two  command- 


SHILOH  87 

ers,  so  desperate  was  the  fight  defying  all  the  rules 
of  war.  Thus  the  battle  went  in  all  parts  of  the 
field,  and  thus  Grant  found  it  when  he  reached  the 
scene. 

In  the  wild  combat  he  was  imperturbable  as  he  had 
been  at  Donelson.  "I  can  recall  only  two  persons," 
writes  Horace  Porter,  "who  throughout  a  rattling 
fire  of  musketry  always  sat  in  their  saddles  without 
moving  a  muscle  or  winking  an  eye :  one  was  a  bugler 
and  the  other  was  General  Grant."  He  rode  from 
place  to  place  wherever  bullets  flew  and  gave  com 
mands,  as  was  his  way,  in  a  low,  vibrant,  penetrating 
voice,  alert  but  undemonstrative;  there  was  no  mad 
rushing  back  and  forth,  no  stirring  calls  to  action;  he 
might  be  beaten,  but  he  could  not  be  perturbed.  The 
odds  throughout  were  with  the  South.  Lew  Wallace, 
with  seven  thousand  men,  mistook  his  road  and  did 
not  reach  the  field  until  late  afternoon  when  the  ex 
hausted  armies  were  welcoming  the  night.  Prentiss 
was  captured  with  his  improvised  brigade  after  a  day 
of  desperate  fighting  at  the  "Hornet's  Nest."  Nelson 
did  not  cross  the  river.  Just  who  was  blameworthy 
for  these  mishaps  has  been  the  theme  of  controversy 
ever  since. 

As  night  approached,  the  Confederates  had  the 
best  of  it.  They  held  the  ground  where  Sherman's 
troops  had  slept  the  night  before.  The  Union  army, 


88  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

mercilessly  battered,  had  been  forced  toward  the 
river,  beneath  the  bank  of  which  thousands  of  panic- 
stricken  stragglers  chased  to  the  rear  were  swarming. 

There  have  been  few  great  battles  with  so  little 
planning.  Grant  in  command  could  not  coordinate 
his  forces  or  direct  them  from  a  given  vantage-point. 
He  must  be  where  he  could  best  be  of  service,  now 
with  Sherman,  now  with  McClernand,  now  with 
Prentiss  in  the  "Hornet's  Nest,"  reorganizing,  re 
adjusting,  realigning,  ceaselessly  encouraging  first 
one  brigade  and  then  another,  inspiring  them  with 
his  indomitable  will. 

The  enemy  were  superior  in  numbers  and  not  in 
ferior  in  ability  to  fight.  If  in  the  middle  of  the  after 
noon  the  knightly  Johnston  had  not  fallen  while 
rallying  his  men,  no  one  can  guess  what  might  have 
happened.  The  South  has  said  that  his  death  turned 
the  tide  of  battle;  Jefferson  Davis  wrote  years  later 
that  "the  fortunes  of  a  country  hung  by  the  single 
thread  of  the  life  that  was  yielded  on  the  field  of 
Shiloh."  The  world  will  never  know. 

When  Beauregard  at  sunset  issued  his  order  to  sus 
pend  the  fight  till  morning,  Braxton  Bragg,  who  was 
for  risking  everything  upon  a  grand  attack  that  night, 
declared  to  the  staff  officer  who  brought  the  message, 
that  if  it  had  not  already  reached  the  other  generals 
he  would  not  obey  it,  and  added  dismally,  "The 


SHILOH  89 

battle  is  lost."  But  Beauregard  always  held  that  he 
was  right,  which  is  to-day  the  general  view. 

Bragg  would  have  fought  ahead  upon  the  theory 
that  when  opposing  forces  seemingly  have  spent 
their  strength,  the  one  which  gathers  first  its  lagging 
energies  for  a  renewed  assault  is  almost  sure  to  win. 
That  was  the  theory  of  which  Grant  gave  a  striking 
demonstration  the  next  morning,  and  on  which  he 
turned  the  day  at  Donelson,  which  was  a  fundamen 
tal  feature  of  his  strategy;  but  it  must  presuppose 
that  in  power  of  endurance  the  enemy  does  not  excel, 
and  that  was  not  the  case  at  Shiloh. 

With  fewer  men  the  Federal  brigades  had  ob 
stinately  disputed  every  foot  of  ground  since  morn 
ing,  though  taken  where  they  had  not  thought  to  meet 
the  enemy  in  formidable  force,  and  that  too  without 
adequate  formation.  Lew  Wallace  had  just  reached 
the  battered  right  with  his  seven  thousand  un 
scathed  veterans.  Nelson  was  on  the  opposite  bank 
and  Buell's  army  was  already  landing  from  the  trans 
ports,  while  Beauregard  had  no  reserves  in  sight.  He 
had  been  held  back  two  hours  at  the  "Hornet's 
Nest"  by  Prentiss  and  William  Wallace,  and  after 
Wallace  had  been  killed  and  Prentiss  captured,  with 
two  thousand  men,  he  had  been  impeded  by  having  to 
send  captives  to  the  rear.  When  night  fell  the  time 
had  passed  when  he  could  hope  to  seize  the  Union 


90  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

line  by  assault  and  cut  off  Grant's  communication 
with  approaching  reinforcements.  Bragg  was  right 
when  he  declared  the  battle  lost,  but  he  was  doubt 
less  wrong  in  thinking  a  final  charge  could  save  it. 

Grant,  so  constituted  that  he  could  not  know  when 
he  was  beaten,  had  never  doubted  ultimate  success, 
and  when  the  armies  bivouacked  for  the  night,  sleep 
ing  on  their  arms  because  the  rebels  had  their  tents, 
he  had  already  planned  to  knit  his  line  of  battle  and 
with  fresh  troops  drive  back  the  enemy. 

To  Buell,  who  had  reached  Pittsburg  Landing 
hours  in  advance  of  his  men  that  Sunday  afternoon, 
and  saw  the  stragglers  huddled  by  the  thousand  on 
the  bank,  defeat  seemed  imminent.  "What  prepara 
tions  have  you  made  for  retreat?"  he  asked  Grant. 
"I  haven't  despaired  of  whipping  them  yet,"  said 
Grant.  "Of  course!  But  if  you  should  be  whipped, 
how  will  you  get  your  men  across  the  river?  These 
transports  will  not  take  more  than  ten  thousand 
troops."  "If  I  have  to  retreat,  ten  thousand  will  be 
as  many  as  I  shall  need  transports  for." 

Brutal  indifference  to  human  life  it  seemed;  and 
when  the  news  of  Union  losses  came,  —  twelve 
thousand  men,  wounded  or  killed,  —  the  Northern 
press  began  to  call  him  "Butcher  Grant."  But  that 
night  with  his  aching  leg  he  could  not  bear  the  sights 
and  sounds  in  the  shelter  of  the  shanty  where  he  tried 


SHILOH  91 

to  sleep  and  where  they  had  brought  the  wounded, 
but  went  out  in  the  mud  and  driving  rain  to  get  what 
sleep  he  could,  propped  up  against  a  tree.  He  has 
said  of  the  one  bull-fight  he  ever  witnessed,  "the 
sight  to  me  was  sickening."  He  could  not  bear  the 
sight  of  blood  or  that  of  other  men  in  pain,  and  he  has 
written  that  one  reason  why,  after  the  second  day  at 
Shiloh,  he  did  not  pursue  the  beaten  enemy,  was  that 
he  had  not  the  heart  to  demand  more  work  of  his  own 
jaded  men;  which  may  be  set  with  Sherman's  whim 
sical  reply  when  John  Fiske  asked  him  why  the  rebels 
were  not  chased:  "I  assure  you,  my  dear  fellow,  we 
had  had  quite  enough  of  their  society  for  two  whole 
days,  and  were  only  too  glad  to  be  rid  of  them  on  any 
terms"; 1  and  Buell's  bitter  comment:  "I  make  no 
attempt  to  excuse  myself  or  blame  others  when  I  say 
that  General  Grant's  troops,  the  lowest  individual 
among  them  not  more  than  the  commander  himself, 
appear  to  have  thought  the  object  of  the  battle  was 
sufficiently  accomplished  when  they  were  reinstated 
in  their  camps;  and  that  in  some  way  that  idea 
obstructed  the  organization  of  my  line  until  a  further 
advance  that  day  became  impracticable." 

Certain   it   is    the   Southern   forces   were   badly 
thrashed  that  second  day.    Beauregard  must  have 
realized  that  they  would  lose  before  the  battle  was 
i  The  Mississippi  Valley  in  the  Civil  War,  p.  99. 


92  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

renewed  because  he  must  have  known  that  his  de 
pleted  lines  could  not  contend  on  equal  terms  against 
Grant's  army  reinforced  by  Wallace,  with  Buell's 
fresh  divisions  hourly  pouring  in.  By  four  o'clock  the 
remnant  of  his  shattered  force  was  in  retreat  toward 
Corinth.  He  had  lost  in  missing,  dead,  and  wounded 
over  twelve  thousand  troops.  The  Union  loss  was 
equal,  besides  the  capture  of  Prentiss  and  his  force, 
but  Grant  and  Buell  had  more  men  to  spare. 

"  I  saw  an  open  field  in  our  possession  on  the  second 
day,"  writes  Grant,  "over  which  the  Confederates 
had  made  repeated  charges  the  day  before,  so  covered 
with  dead  that  it  would  have  been  possible  to  walk 
across  the  clearing,  in  any  direction,  stepping  on  dead 
bodies,  without  a  foot  touching  the  ground.  .  .  .  On 
one  part  .  .  .  bushes  had  grown  up,  some  to  the 
height  of  eight  or  ten  feet.  There  was  not  one  of 
these  left  standing  unpierced  by  bullets." 

In  the  grewsome  light  of  evidence  like  this  of 
gallant  and  grim  encounter,  there  is  a  Gascon  touch 
in  what  Beauregard  wrote  to  Grant  from  Corinth, 
when  asking  leave  to  bury  his  dead:  "At  the  close  of 
the  conflict  yesterday,  my  forces  being  exhausted  by 
the  extraordinary  length  of  time  during  which  they 
were  engaged  with  yours  ...  I  felt  it  my  duty  to 
withdraw  my  troops  from  the  immediate  scene  of 
conflict." 


SHILOH  93 

And  now  came  Halleck  ponderously  from  his 
arm-chair  in  St.  Louis,  to  assume  direct  command 
four  days  after  the  battle  had  been  won.  He  found 
awaiting  him  an  army  of  one  hundred  thousand  men, 
Pope,  by  the  capture  of  Island  No.  10,  having  opened 
the  Mississippi  down  to  Memphis  and  joined  his 
army  to  those  of  Grant  and  Buell.  With  this  great 
army,  after  prodigiously  elaborate  preparation,  Hal 
leck  crept  stealthily  toward  Corinth,  where  Beaure- 
gard  was  lingering  with  fifty  thousand,  covered  the 
distance  in  a  month,  intrenching  daily,  keeping  his 
army  busy  with  axes,  picks,  and  shovels,  holding 
back  his  generals  eager  for  a  fight,  and  finally  closed 
in  triumphantly,  only  to  find  an  empty  town,  which 
Beauregard  had  never  meant  to  hold  and  had  quit 
long  before,  leaving  wooden  guns  frowning  over 
useless  earthworks  to  deceive  the  Federal  com 
mander.  Beauregard  knew,  like  almost  everybody 
else,  that  Corinth  had  been  captured  when  his  as 
sault  at  Shiloh  failed. 

"After  all,"  Halleck  admitted  finally  to  Grant, 
"you  fought  at  Pittsburg  Landing  the  battle  of 
Corinth!" 


CHAPTER  XII 

HUMILIATION 

WHILE  his  superior  was  crawling  through  his  evolu 
tions,  Grant  underwent  a  cruel  test  of  loyalty  and 
patience.  After  Shiloh  a  storm  of  hot  denunciation 
broke  upon  him.  He  could  have  been  in  hardly  worse 
repute  had  he  betrayed  his  country.  If  he  were  really 
guilty  of  a  lapse  he  paid  a  bitter  price. 

The  first  reports  of  Shiloh  to  reach  the  North  were 
those  of  hostile  critics,  inspired  in  part  by  envious 
rivals.  Buell's  men  were  quick  to  say  that  only  their 
arrival  saved  Grant's  army  and  that  the  triumph  of 
the  second  day  belonged  to  them.  McClernand, 
ready  with  his  pen,  wrote  home,  as  after  Donelson 
and  Belmont,  claiming  the  glory  of  the  day.  The 
Sunday  skulkers  on  the  river-bank  thought  every 
body  else  had  also  run  away,  and  told  this  tale  where- 
ever  they  could  hold  a  listener  among  the  gullible  and 
sympathetic  visitors  to  camp.  The  Northern  press 
defiled  itself  with  slander :  Grant  was  drunk  before  the 
battle  and  while  it  was  on,  loafing  behind  and  letting 
others  fight;  Prentiss  and  his  men  had  been  caught 
sleeping  in  their  tents  and  bayoneted  in  their  beds; 
thousands  of  Northern  volunteers  had  been  slaugh 
tered  wantonly. 


HUMILIATION  95 

Fed  by  such  tales  the  Western  States,  whose  troops 
had  suffered  most,  were  glad  when  Halleck  came, 
remodeling  the  army,  now  reinforced  to  more  than 
one  hundred  thousand  men,  into  three  great  divi 
sions,  one  under  Buell,  one  under  Thomas,  one  un 
der  Pope  —  Grant  looking  on  as  "  second  in  com 
mand"  with  no  one  subject  to  his  order  except  his 
personal  staff.  Thus  it  was  while  Halleck  crept  to 
ward  Corinth,  and  then,  "  Why  not  press  on  to  Vicks- 
burg  before  it  can  be  strengthened?"  he  suggested, 
bringing  from  Halleck  the  rebuke,  "When  your  ad 
vice  is  needed  it  will  be  asked."  For  Halleck  thought 
the  aim  of  war  was  to  get  places,  and  Corinth  was  a 
place;  while  Grant  was  taught  at  Shiloh  that  the 
South  could  not  be  conquered  until  its  armies  were 
destroyed  and  its  resources  gone,  and  to  seize  Vicks- 
burg  promptly  would  give  the  Union  army  the  Mis 
sissippi,  cut  off  the  Southern  sources  of  supply  from 
the  Southwest  and  Mexico,  and  hasten  the  contrac 
tion  and  compression  of  the  rebel  forces  to  receive 
the  final  crushing  blow.  Vicksburg  once  captured, 
Corinth  would  again  become  a  railroad  junction  — 
nothing  more. 

And  so  with  each  strategic  point;  to  Grant  its  only 
value  was  as  a  resting-place  from  which  to  spring 
upon  the  next.  To  hold  it  longer  wasted  men  who 
could  be  put  to  stouter  service  somewhere  else.  But 


96  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Halleck  clung  to  Corinth,  letting  Vicksburg  wait 
until  the  Southern  armies  gathered  strength  for  its 
defense;  so  that  what  might  have  been  accomplished 
in  a  month  by  swift  advances  called  after  Shiloh  for 
a  year's  campaign  with  grueling  encounters  over  a 
broad  field,  while  Corinth  itself,  which  fell  to  Hal 
leck  unresisted  in  early  May,  was  held  by  Rosecrans 
the  next  October  only  after  one  of  the  historic  battles 
of  the  war.  "I  think  the  enemy  will  continue  his  re 
treat,  which  is  all  I  desire,"  was  Halleck's  message 
while  Beauregard  was  trekking  south.  Hence  no 
precautions  against  the  prospect  of  the  enemy's  re 
covery  and  return. 

So  Grant  lay  rusting  in  his  tent  while  Halleck 
dawdled  and  the  critics  bawled;  not  sulky  or  resent 
ful,  but  chafing  inwardly  and  sick  at  heart  that  a  great 
opportunity  should  pass  which  he  thought  he  knew 
how  to  seize.  Orders  were  sent  his  troops  without  his 
knowledge.  Reports  of  his  subordinates  at  Shiloh 
were  forwarded  to  Washington  without  passing 
through  his  hands.  On  the  strength  of  his  unselfish 
praise  Halleck  asked  higher  rank  for  Sherman,  but 
did  not  mention  Grant  by  name. 

"The  President  desires  to  know,"  wired  Stanton, 
"whether  any  neglect  or  misconduct  of  General 
Grant  or  any  other  officer  contributed  to  the  sad  cas 
ualties  that  befell  our  forces  on  Sunday  ";  to  which 


HUMILIATION  97 

Halleck  significantly  replied:  "The  casualties  were 
due  in  part  to  the  bad  conduct  of  officers  utterly  un 
fit  for  their  places.  ...  I  prefer  to  express  no  opinion 
in  regard  to  the  conduct  of  individuals  till  I  receive 
reports  of  commanders  of  divisions"  —  evasive  save 
by  insinuation. 

Grant  asked  to  be  relieved  from  duty  altogether 
and  have  his  command  defined.  "  You  have  precisely 
the  position  to  which  your  rank  entitles  you  ..." 
replied  Halleck.  "For  the  last  three  months  I  have 
done  everything  in  my  power  to  ward  off  the  attacks 
which  were  made  upon  you."  Sherman  heard  from 
Halleck  that  Grant  had  leave  to  go  away  —  Sherman 
who  had  no  fame  till  Shiloh,  except  the  tale  that  he 
was  crazy  because  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  the 
press  had  quoted  him  as  saying  that  to  occupy  Ken 
tucky  would  take  two  hundred  thousand  men,  and 
who  had  just  begun  to  love  and  prize  the  silent  soldier 
whose  traits  were  in  such  contrast  to  his  own.  He 
rode  straightway  to  Grant's  headquarters  and  asked 
why  he  was  going.  "  Sherman,  you  know,"  said  Grant, 
"You  know  that  I  am  in  the  way  here.  I  have  stood 
it  as  long  as  I  can."  Where  was  he  going?  "To 
St.  Louis."  Had  he  any  business  there?  "Not  a 
bit."  Then  Sherman  argued,  his  own  case  in  mind, 
that  if  he  went,  the  war  would  go  right  on  and  he 
would  be  left  out;  while  if  he  stayed,  some  acci- 


98  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

dent  might  bring  him  back  to  favor  and  his  true 
place. 1 

Grant  stayed,  but  found  it  irksome.  The  flunkeys 
at  headquarters  still  ignored  him;  the  attacks  at  home 
persisted;  Congress  debated  him.  John  Sherman  in 
the  Senate  almost  alone  dared  come  to  his  defense, 
drawing  upon  himself  the  angry  protest  of  Harlan,  of 
Iowa,  against  this  "attempt  to  bolster  up  Grant's 
reputation."  " The  Iowa  troops,"  said  Harlan,  "have 
no  confidence  in  his  capacity  and  fitness  for  the  high 
position  he  now  holds.  They  regard  him  as  the  au 
thor  of  the  useless  slaughter  of  many  hundreds  of 
their  brave  comrades.  .  .  .  There  is  nothing  in  his  an 
tecedents  to  justify  a  further  trial  of  his  military  skill. 
...  At  Belmont  he  committed  an  egregious  and  un 
pardonable  military  blunder.  ...  At  Fort  Donelson 
the  right  wing  . . .  under  his  immediate  command  was 
defeated  and  driven  back.  .  .  .  The  battle  was  re 
stored  by  General  Smith.  ...  On  the  battlefield  of 
Shiloh  his  army  was  completely  surprised  .  .  .  and 
nothing  but  the  stubborn  bravery  of  the  men  fight 
ing  by  regiments  and  brigades  saved  the  army  from 
utter  destruction.  The  battle  was  afterwards  re 
stored  and  conducted  by  General  Buell  and  other 
generals.  .  .  .  With  such  a  record,  those  who  con 
tinue  General  Grant  in  an  active  command  will  in 
1  Memoirs  o/  W.  T.  Sherman,  vol.  i,  p.  283. 


HUMILIATION  99 

my  opinion  carry  on  their  skirts  the  blood  of  thou 
sands  of  their  slaughtered  countrymen." 

The  riot  of  detraction  stirred  the  War  Department 
and  the  White  House.  It  was  then  that  Lincoln  met 
the  plea  of  powerful  delegations  that  Grant  should  be 
relieved  from  duty,  with  the  not-to-be-forgotten  an 
swer,  "I  can't  spare  this  man  —  he  fights!" 

After  two  months  Halleck  restored  Grant  to  a 
separate  command,  and  Grant  betook  himself  to 
Memphis,  lately  fallen  into  Union  hands  with  the 
capitulation  of  Island  No.  10  and  Corinth.  There, 
having  fixed  his  headquarters,  he  remained,  still 
rusticated,  but  no  longer  stung  by  daily  slights  in 
front  of  Halleck's  armies,  till  there  came  one  of  the 
fantastic  shifts  which  were  so  frequent  in  the  first 
months  of  the  war. 

Things  were  in  sad  odor  in  Virginia  —  McClellan 
forced  back  to  the  James  by  Lee  had  shattered  Lin 
coln's  faith,  and  Lincoln,  casting  around  in  his  per 
plexity  for  military  competence,  called  Halleck  from 
the  West  to  Washington,  ordering  on  July  11  that  he 
"be  assigned  to  command  the  whole  land  forces  of 
the  United  States  as  General-in-Chief,"  for  Halleck 
was  in  nominal  command  of  all  the  armies  of  the 
West,  by  whom  the  only  Union  victories  had  been 
won. 

"In  leaving  this  department,"  he  wired  to  Stanton, 


100  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

"shall  I  relinquish  the  command  to  next  in  rank,  or 
will  the  President  designate  who  is  to  be  the  com 
mander?"  Stan  ton  wired  to  turn  the  army  over  to 
the  next  in  rank  —  and  Halleck  ordered  Grant  to 
come  to  Corinth. 

"Shall  I  bring  my  staff?"  Grant  asked.  "You  can 
do  as  you  please,"  was  the  response.  "Corinth  will 
be  your  headquarters." 

There  he  set  up  his  camp  with  fifty  thousand  men 
to  hold  the  district  between  Corinth  and  Cairo,  Hal- 
leek's  big  army  having  been  broken  up;  and,  through 
the  summer,  under  orders,  he  lay  still.  He  would 
have  been  forgotten,  so  fickle  is  fame  gained  in  war, 
had  it  not  been  for  the  dispute  concerning  Shiloh 
which  had  spasmodic  life  with  politicians  and  the 
press  of  the  Middle  Western  States.  He  suffered 
keenly,  but  in  silence,  except  with  Sherman,  who  had 
won  his  confidence  and  who  was  in  command  at 
Memphis ;  with  Washburne,  to  whom  as  his  one  friend 
in  Washington  he  felt  some  explanation  due;  and 
with  his  father,  sputtering  with  parental  indignation, 
writing  and  talking  in  his  defense  among  his  old 
friends  near  his  boyhood  home. 

"I  would  scorn  being  my  own  defender  against 
such  attacks,"  he  wrote  to  Washburne  in  early  May, 
"except  through  the  record  which  has  been  kept  of 
all  my  official  acts.  ...  To  say  that  I  have  not  been 


HUMILIATION  101 

distressed  at  these  attacks  would  be  false;  for  I  have 
a  father,  mother,  wife,  and  children  who  read  them 
and  are  distressed  by  them,  and  I  necessarily  share 
with  them  in  it.  Then,  too,  all  subject  to  my  orders 
read  these  charges,  and  it  is  calculated  to  weaken 
their  confidence  in  me,  and  weaken  my  ability  to 
render  efficient  service  in  our  present  cause.  ...  I 
cannot  be  driven  from  rendering  the  best  service 
within  my  ability  to  suppress  the  present  rebellion. 
.  .  .  Notoriety  has  no  charms  for  me.  .  .  .  Looking 
back  at  the  past  I  cannot  see  for  the  life  of  me  any 
important  point  that  could  be  corrected." 

To  his  father  he  writes  in  August:  "I  do  not  expect 
nor  want  the  support  of  the  Cincinnati  press  on  my 
side.  Their  course  has  been  so  remarkable  from  the 
beginning  that  should  I  be  endorsed  by  them  I  should 
fear  that  the  public  would  mistrust  my  patriotism.  I 
am  sure  that  I  have  but  one  desire  in  this  war  and 
that  is  to  put  down  the  rebellion.  I  have  no  hobby  of 
my  own  with  regard  to  the  negro  either  to  effect  his 
freedom  or  to  continue  his  bondage.  ...  I  do  not 
believe  even  in  the  discussion  of  the  propriety  of  laws 
and  official  orders  by  the  army.  One  enemy  at  a  time 
is  enough  and  when  he  is  subdued,  it  will  be  time 
enough  to  settle  personal  differences." 

Just  before  Corinth,  in  September,  he  writes  his 
father  one  of  the  few  letters  in  which  there  is  a  sign 


102  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

of  petulance.  "  I .  .  .  have  never  had  any  other  feeling 
either  here  or  elsewhere  but  that  of  success.  I  would 
write  you  many  particulars,  but  you  are  so  impru 
dent  that  I  dare  not  trust  you  with  them;  and  while 
on  this  subject  let  me  say  a  word.  I  have  not  an 
enemy  in  the  world  who  has  done  me  so  much  injury 
as  you  in  your  efforts  in  my  defense.  I  require  no 
defenders  and  for  my  sake  let  me  alone.  I  have  heard 
this  from  various  sources,  and  persons  who  have  re 
turned  to  this  army  and  did  not  know  that  I  had 
parents  living  near  Cincinnati  have  said  that  they 
found  the  best  feeling  existing  toward  me  in  every 
place  except  there.  You  are  constantly  denouncing 
other  general  officers,  and  the  inference  with  people 
naturally  is  that  you  get  your  impressions  from 
me.  Do  nothing  to  correct  what  you  have  already 
done,  but  for  the  future  keep  quiet  on  this  sub 
ject." 

Almost  brutal  in  the  directness  of  the  rebuke,  such 
words  could  have  been  forced  from  Grant  only  by 
deep  feeling  long  suppressed.  And  yet  how  tame  com 
pared  with  Sherman's  fire,  who  wrote  home  with  his 
wounded  hand:  "It  is  outrageous  for  the  cowardly 
newspapers  thus  to  defame  men  whose  lives  are  ex 
posed."  For  Sherman's  anger  burned  and  blazed 
against  the  "little  whip-snappers  who  represent  the 
press,  but  are  in  fact  spies  in  our  camps,"  warning 


HUMILIATION  103 

that  "death  awaits  them  whenever  I  have  the 
power "  —  Sherman  of  whom  Charles  Eliot  Norton 
said  to  Curtis,  "  How  his  wrath  swells  and  grows  .  .  . 
he  writes  as  well  as  he  fights." 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  MISSISSIPPI  CAMPAIGN 

HEADED  toward  Vicksburg  in  command,  at  last  Grant 
had  the  chance  he  had  been  looking  for,  though  handi 
capped  by  the  dispersion  of  a  splendid  army  and  by 
the  dilatory  tactics  which  gave  the  enemy  an  oppor 
tunity  to  fortify  and  man  the  place.  His  strategy  in 
following  a  line  of  conquest  which  paralleled  the 
Mississippi,  compelling  the  evacuation  of  the  hostile 
river  strongholds  one  by  one,  had  cleared  the  water 
highway  for  the  fleet  of  Union  gunboats  all  the  way 
down  from  Cairo.  Paducah,  Henry,  Donelson,  and 
Shiloh,  in  giving  the  Union  armies  the  Tennessee  as 
far  south  as  Nashville  and  beyond  to  Corinth,  had 
also  transferred  to  their  control  Columbus,  Memphis, 
Fort  Pillow,  and  Island  No.  10;  for  though  Island 
No.  10  was  seized  by  Pope  while  Shiloh  was  in  fight, 
it  would  have  dropped  into  his  hands  without  resist 
ance  if  he  had  waited  a  few  days. 

Farragut  had  seized  New  Orleans  three  weeks  af 
ter  Shiloh  and  Butler  was  earning  his  sobriquet  of 
"Beast"  as  military  governor  of  the  town.  Farra- 
gut's  boats  could  ply  the  river  as  far  north  as  forti 
fied  Port  Hudson,  while  those  of  Davis  could  convey 
supplies  to  feed  the  Federal  armies  as  far  south  as 


THE   MISSISSIPPI   CAMPAIGN  105 

Vicksburg.  Thus  these  two  strongholds  still  in  rebel 
hands  were  of  the  utmost  value  to  the  Southern 
cause.  Not  only  did  they  cut  in  two  the  Union  navy, 
but  they  controlled  the  gateway  to  the  granary  of  the 
South,  in  Arkansas,  Texas,  and  Louisiana,  rich  enough 
in  soil  to  feed  the  Southern  armies  and  rich  enough  in 
men  to  reinforce  them  with  one  hundred  thousand 
fresh  recruits.  The  Red  River,  running  through 
Texas  and  Louisiana,  emptied  into  the  Mississippi 
below  Vicksburg  and  above  Port  Hudson.  To  close 
its  mouth  against  the  contributions  of  the  territory 
which  it  drained  and  to  open  up  the  Mississippi  from 
Cairo  to  the  Gulf  was  a  high  stake  to  play  for,  and 
Grant  was  not  the  only  general  who  had  it  in  his  eye, 
although  no  other  set  such  store  upon  the  need  of 
speed  in  forcing  the  assault. 

Now  that  he  was  on  the  road  to  the  achievement, 
he  chafed  with  waiting.  The  enemy  had  been  greatly 
reinforced  while  Halleck  loitered  and  were  now  trying 
to  regain  part  of  the  ground  which  they  had  lost, 
luka  and  Corinth  were  saved  by  Ord  and  Rosecrans 
only  after  fierce  attack  by  Sterling  Price  and  Earl 
Van  Dorn.  Vicksburg,  which  had  been  lightly  manned 
and  thinly  fortified  in  April,  had  been  growing 
stouter  every  day  till  it  was  now  well-nigh  impreg 
nable.  Nature  had  guarded  it  on  the  north  by 
swamps,  bayous,  and  shallow  lakes  through  which 


106  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

invading  armies  could  not  hope  to  force  their  way; 
on  the  west  by  a  steep  bluff  two  hundred  feet  in 
height,  from  which  its  batteries  could  rain  a  plunging 
fire  upon  the  rash  fleet  which  should  undertake 
assault  and  up  to  which  no  ship  could  hope  to  train  its 
guns;  on  the  south  by  the  promontories  of  Port  Hud 
son  and  Grand  Gulf,  by  this  time  manned  and  forti 
fied  till  they  were  strongholds  in  themselves.  The  sole 
approach  was  from  the  west  and  there  the  strength 
ened  Southern  armies  intervened,  Van  Dorn  for  his 
defeat  at  Corinth,  for  which  he  was  not  really  culpa 
ble,  having  given  place  to  Pemberton,  a  Pennsylva- 
nian  by  birth,  trained  at  West  Point,  a  rebel  out  of 
friendship  for  the  Confederate  President,  who  gave 
him  rank  above  his  seniors  and  responsible  command 
unjustified  by  service  or  by  the  event. 

Grant's  first  plan  was  to  parallel  the  river  with 
out  approaching  it,  just  as  from  Paducah  to  Pittsburg 
Landing,  compelling  Vicksburg's  fall,  as  he  had 
forced  the  fall  of  all  the  other  strongholds  between 
Vicksburg  and  Cairo  by  seizing  points  of  vantage 
along  the  Tennessee.  He  would  abandon  Corinth  as 
no  longer  necessary,  now  that  its  railroad  connections 
were  in  his  hands  and  press  hard  on  the  rebel  forces 
which  protected  Vicksburg. 

Having  in  mind  the  moss-grown  axiom  of  war  that 
a  great  army  in  a  hostile  country  should  have  a  base 


THE   MISSISSIPPI   CAMPAIGN  107 

to  which  it  could  fall  back  in  case  of  need,  he  fixed 
Columbus  as  his  base  and  deserting  Corinth  marched 
his  force  along  the  Mississippi  Central  Railroad  from 
Grand  Junction  to  Grenada,  while  Sherman  with 
Memphis  for  a  base  moved  down  the  Mississippi  on 
transports  to  effect  a  landing  at  the  bluffs  just  north 
of  Vicksburg  and  thus  cooperate  with  Grant,  who 
hoped  to  keep  the  enemy  engaged  while  Sherman 
captured  Vicksburg  by  assault.  When  he  set  out, 
both  he  and  Sherman,  with  whom  he  talked  it  out  at 
Oxford,  would  have  chosen  rather  to  move  in  full 
force  on  Jackson,  the  Mississippi  capital,  using 
Memphis  as  a  base,  but  the  Mississippi  Central 
Railroad,  which  ran  from  Memphis  to  Jackson,  had 
been  torn  up  between  Memphis  and  Grenada,  and  to 
wait  for  its  repair  would  eat  up  time,  already  grown 
too  dear.  Even  as  it  was  the  time  was  wasted. 
Grant  kept  getting  mystic  messages  from  Washington 
whose  meaning  did  not  dawn  on  him  till  after  the 
event.  Forrest  with  his  cavalry  left  Bragg  in  front  of 
Rosecrans  at  Murfreesboro,  and  darting  through  the 
State  of  Tennessee  cut  Grant's  communication  with 
Columbus  by  spoiling  sixty  miles  of  railroad  and 
leveling  the  telegraph,  so  that  Grant,  completely 
isolated  and  unable  even  to  tell  Sherman  of  his 
plight,  had  to  work  slowly  back  living  off  the  coun 
try  during  the  eighty  miles'  retreat,  since  Holly 


108  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Springs,  where  stores  had  been  accumulated  for  an 
emergency,  was  at  that  moment  surrendered  to  Van 
Dorn,  who  in  a  quick  dash  from  the  rear  had  found 
a  coward  in  command.  Grant,  after  three  weeks'  iso 
lation,  again  in  touch  with  Memphis  on  January  8, 
learned  that  Sherman  ten  days  before  had  been  beaten 
back  in  his  assault  upon  the  bluffs  near  Vicksburg, 
and  that  McClernand  was  in  command  of  the 
Mississippi  River  expedition,  supplanting  Sherman 
on  the  strength  of  Lincoln's  order. 

It  was  now  midwinter  and  nothing  had  been 
gained  since  spring  except  experience,  though  Grant's 
offensive  had  at  least  diverted  Forrest's  cavalry  from 
Bragg,  likewise  ten  thousand  men  whom  Bragg  sent  to 
help  Pemberton,  thus  weakening  his  own  force  and 
doubtless  giving  Rosecrans  the  victory  in  the  close- 
fought  battle  of  Stone  River,  January  1,  which  opened 
up  the  way  for  Missionary  Ridge  and  Chattanooga, 
the  possession  of  Knoxville  and  Atlanta,  and  Sher 
man's  march  through  Georgia. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

McCLERNAND 

McCLERNAND's  plottings  and  ambitions,  his  rivalry 
and  jealousy  of  Grant,  comprise  a  curious  chapter  of 
the  time  —  one  of  the  episodes  of  Grant's  career 
which  seem  to  indicate  a  hovering  Providence. 
Nothing  but  unfaltering  faith  and  an  unswerving 
loyalty  could  have  enabled  him  to  meet  unquestion 
ing  the  obstacles  he  faced,  especially  those  set  before 
him  early  in  the  war  before  his  fame  was  fixed.  The 
brigadiers  from  Illinois  whom  Lincoln  named  with 
him  at  the  beginning  had  been  tangled  in  his  fortunes 
ever  since.  Though  he  outranked  them  by  coming 
earliest  on  the  list,  they  held  themselves  as  his 
superiors.  Why  not?  Newly  arrived,  he  had  been 
selling  leather  in  Galena  only  four  months  ago, 
while  they  had  long  been  men  of  much  repute.  At 
that  stage  of  the  war  a  regiment  was  like  a  militant 
town  meeting.  To  stand  high  in  politics  marked  one 
as  fitted  for  command.  When  Prentiss  in  Missouri 
found  himself  subordinate  to  Grant,  he  quit  in  anger, 
flashing  hotly,  "I  will  not  serve  under  a  drunkard!" 
—  but  came  back  later,  fought  under  Grant  at 
Donelson  and  Shiloh,  and  gallantly  on  many  other 
fields.  Hurlbut  marred  a  creditable  record  with 


110  ULYSSES  S.   GRANT 

wearisome  complaints.  McClernand  represented 
Lincoln's  town  in  Congress  —  a  Douglas  Democrat. 
It  was  important  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war  that  he 
and  Logan  should  stand  by  the  Union  cause,  and 
Lincoln,  always  politic,  courted  their  favor.  Had  it 
not  been  for  his  self-seeking  vanity  McClernand 
might  have  left  a  record  to  compare  with  Logan's, 
but  his  ambition  overleaped  itself.  Scheming  for 
praise  at  home,  he  claimed  such  glory  as  there  was  at 
Belmont,  Donelson,  and  Shiloh,  filling  the  local  press 
with  tributes  to  his  valor,  poisoning  the  mails  with 
scandal  about  Grant,  presuming  on  a  neighbor's 
privilege  to  make  reports  direct  to  Lincoln,  intriguing 
for  a  separate  command,  and  now,  when  Vicksburg 
was  in  sight,  running  to  Washington  with  a  pre 
sumptuous  plan  for  self-aggrandizement.  He  was  to 
organize  an  independent  expedition  to  clear  the 
Mississippi  to  New  Orleans,  picking  up  Vicksburg  on 
the  way,  and  for  this  purpose  Lincoln  ordered  him  to 
raise  the  necessary  troops  in  Indiana,  Iowa,  and 
Illinois.  In  patriotic  fervor  of  appeal  McClernand 
could  not  be  excelled.  He  swiftly  garnered  forty 
thousand  volunteers,  and  by  the  time  Grant  started 
south  with  Sherman  was  prepared  to  enter  on  a  con 
quering  career.  "  I  have  a  greater  general  now  than 
either  Grant  or  Sherman,"  Lincoln  said  to  Admiral 
Porter;  but  in  issuing  his  order  to  McClernand  he 


McCLERNAND  111 

cautiously  refrained  from  giving  him  the  free  hand 
which  McClernand  sought,  providing  that  "when  a 
sufficient  force  not  required  by  the  operations  of 
General  Grant's  command  shall  be  raised,  an  expedi 
tion  may  be  organized  under  General  McClernand's 
command  against  Vicksburg  and  to  clear  the  Missis 
sippi  River  and  open  navigation  to  New  Orleans." 
It  was  this  order  which  lay  behind  the  disconcerting 
messages  Grant  had  from  Halleck.  McClernand 
thought  it  gave  him  equal  place  with  Grant.  His 
error  did  not  dawn  upon  him  till,  after  superseding 
Sherman,  having  gained  a  foothold  in  Arkansas,  and 
encouraged  thus  to  undertake  the  wanton  task  of 
leading  thirty  thousand  men  to  clear  the  State  of 
rebel  troops,  he  was  called  back  summarily  by  Grant, 
aghast  at  the  proposal  to  divert  so  great  a  segment  of 
his  army  from  the  immediate  work  in  hand.  Grant 
wired  to  Halleck  that  McClernand  had  "gone  on  a 
wild-goose  chase";  McClernand,  sullenly  obedient, 
wrote  confidentially  to  Lincoln,  "My  success  here  is 
gall  and  wormwood  to  the  clique  of  West  Pointers 
who  have  been  persecuting  me  for  months";  Sher 
man,  who  six  months  before  had  steadied  Grant,  now, 
wounded  to  the  quick,  wrote  to  his  brother  John: 
"Mr.  Lincoln  intended  to  insult  me  and  the  military 
profession  by  putting  McClernand  over  me,  and  I 
would  have  quietly  folded  up  my  things  and  gone  to 


112  ULYSSES  S.   GRANT 

St.  Louis  only  I  know  in  times  like  these  all  must 
submit  to  insult  and  infamy  if  necessary."  Of  the 
three  generals,  Grant  was  the  one  to  hold  his  poise. 

Embarrassing  as  was  the  controversy  with  Mc- 
Clernand,  its  ultimate  result  was  to  make  Grant  in 
person  assume  the  task  of  taking  Vicksburg  instead 
of  leaving  it  to  Sherman,  who  otherwise  would  have 
been  chosen  for  the  work  and  who  would  not  have 
followed  without  specific  orders  the  plans  Grant  had 
in  mind;  but  unless  he  changed  his  nature  it  was  in 
evitable  that  McClernand  should  be  relieved  from  a 
command  which  brought  him  into  conflict  with  his 
superior.  So  long  as  he  remained  with  Grant  he  was 
profanely  insubordinate,  lingered  behind  when  or 
dered  to  advance;  arranged  spectacular  reviews  when 
fighting  was  at  hand,  cumbered  himself  with  wagons 
when  told  to  leave  them  in  the  rear,  continued  firing 
when  instructed  to  harbor  ammunition,  swore  at 
Wilson,  who  brought  him  directions  from  Grant, "  I  '11 
be  God  damned  if  I  will  do  it  —  I  am  tired  of  being 
dictated  to." 

Finally  he  issued  a  vainglorious  order  to  his  corps 
congratulating  them  for  gallantry  in  an  assault  on 
Vicksburg  which  did  not  succeed  and  taking  other 
corps  to  task  for  failure  to  cooperate.  He  sent  this  on 
to  Illinois  for  publication  without  submitting  it  to 
Grant,  and  for  this  gross  breach  of  discipline,  resented 


McCLERNAND  113 

angrily  by  Sherman  and  McPherson  and  their  men, 
Grant  sent  him  home  to  Springfield,  relieving  him 
summarily  from  his  command.  From  Springfield 
three  months  later  he  sent  to  Washington  a  viru 
lent  letter  requesting  a  court  of  inquiry.  "  How  far 
General  Grant  is  indebted  to  the  forbearance  of 
officers  under  his  command  for  his  retention  in  the 
public  service  so  long,"  he  wrote,  "  I  will  not  under 
take  to  state  unless  he  should  challenge  it.  None 
know  better  than  himself  how  much  he  is  indebted 
to  their  forbearance.  Neither  will  I  undertake  to 
show  that  he  is  indebted  to  the  good  conduct  of 
officers  and  men  of  his  command  at  different  times 
for  the  series  of  successes  that  have  gained  him  ap 
plause,  rather  than  to  his  merit  as  a  commander, 
unless  he  should  challenge  it  too."  When  this  attack 
reached  Washington,  it  was  too  late  to  do  Grant  any 
harm.  The  President  would  not  consent  to  an  in 
quiry,  taking  the  ground  that  it  "would  necessarily 
withdraw  from  the  field  many  officers  whose  presence 
with  their  commander  is  absolutely  indispensable  to 
the  service  and  whose  absence  might  cause  irrepar 
able  injury  to  the  success  of  active  operations  now 
in  active  progress." 

"McClernand  played  himself  out,"  Sherman 
wrote  home  the  day  after  Vicksburg  fell,  "and  there  is 
not  an  officer  or  soldier  here  but  rejoices  he  is  gone 


114  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

away.  With  an  intense  selfishness  and  love  of  noto 
riety  he  could  not  let  his  mind  get  beyond  the  limits 
of  his  vision,  and  therefore  all  was  brilliant  about  him 
and  dark  and  suspicious  beyond.  My  style  is  the 
reverse.  I  am  somewhat  blind  to  what  occurs  near  me, 
but  have  a  clear  perception  of  things  and  events  re 
mote.  Grant  possesses  the  happy  medium,  and  it  is 
for  this  reason  I  admire  him.  I  have  a  much  quicker 
perception  of  things  than  he,  but  he  balances  the 
present  and  remote  so  evenly  that  results  follow  in 
natural  course." 


CHAPTER  XV 

VICKSBURG 

SHERMAN'S  rebuff  near  Vicksburg  revived  the  storm 
of  criticism  and  stirred  the  Northern  press  to  new 
attacks  on  Grant,  as  well  as  on  other  Union  generals 
East  and  West.  The  story  in  Virginia  had  been  one 
of  procrastination  and  defeat  and  now  the  gleam  of 
hope  in  Mississippi  seemed  to  have  vanished  too. 
McClernand's  advocates  were  vocal.  But  there  was 
nothing  in  it  now  for  Grant  except  to  feel  his  way. 
He  could  not  force  his  troops  through  the  net  of 
creeks  and  bayous  swollen  with  winter's  freshets,  but 
transferring  his  army  to  the  west  bank  of  the  river  he 
encamped  at  Milliken's  Bend  and  utilized  the  time 
till  spring  in  testing  schemes  to  get  boats  and 
supplies  around  the  Vicksburg  batteries  to  help  the 
army  later  operate  below;  cutting  canals  to  change 
the  river's  winding  course;  breaking  levees,  uniting 
lakes,  hunting  for  channels;  and  all  the  time  attending 
to  the  disagreeable  details  of  army  management.  Dis 
honest  and  disloyal  traders  from  the  North  infested 
his  department,  drawn  by  the  lure  of  cotton  specula 
tion,  and  at  last  in  desperation  he  ordered  the  expul 
sion  of  "Jews  as  a  class"  -a  drastic  step  which 
raised  a  storm  of  protest  in  Congress  and  the  press 


116  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

till  Lincoln  countermanded  it  —  Lincoln,  who  knew 
Grant's  feeling  toward  the  traders  in  necessities  of 
war,  his  old  friend  Leonard  Swett,  of  Springfield, 
having  once  been  ordered  out  of  Cairo  on  pain  of 
being  shot  because  he  tried  to  force  on  Grant  a  ques 
tionable  deal  in  hay.  When  Swett  sought  Lincoln  at 
the  White  House  with  his  protest,  Lincoln  said, 
"  Well,  Swett,  if  I  were  in  your  place,  I  should  keep 
out  of  Ulysses  Simpson's  bailiwick,  for  to  the  best  of 
my  knowledge  and  belief  Grant  will  keep  his  promise 
if  he  catches  you  in  Cairo." 

Amid  distractions  such  as  these  Grant  worked  out 
his  daring  plans  for  seizing  Vicksburg.  He  was  on 
trial  at  Washington.  Discontent  was  spreading 
through  the  North,  discouraged  by  the  months  of 
dreary  waiting.  It  was  a  dark  hour  for  the  Union 
cause.  Stanton,  hard  pressed  on  every  side,  was 
moved  in  his  impatience  to  do  a  foolish  thing.  He 
thought  to  bribe  his  generals  into  action  and  sent  a 
letter  to  Grant,  Rosecrans,  and  Hooker  promising  to 
make  the  victor  of  the  first  important  battle  a  major- 
general  in  the  regular  army.  Rosecrans,  commanding 
the  Army  of  the  Cumberland  in  Tennessee,  wrote  a 
petulant  reply.  Hooker  promptly  led  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac  to  humiliating  defeat  at  Chancellors- 
ville.  Grant  ignored  the  letter;  he  did  not  let  it 
hasten  him  or  influence  his  course. 


GRANT   AS   MAJOR-GENERAL  COMMANDING 

IN  THE   WEST 
Photograph  by  J.  E.  McClees 

From  tin-  <;,ll>-<:tiou  of  l-'rcih-nck  IliU  Mexi-rvt 


VICKSBURG  117 

When  all  was  ready  on  the  night  of  April  16,  1863, 
Porter  bravely  ran  the  blazing  Vicksburg  batteries 
with  a  portion  of  his  fleet,  following  with  others  later, 
safely  performing  almost  without  a  scar  a  feat  which 
Sherman  and  most  of  Grant's  other  generals  thought 
too  perilous  to  undertake.  The  army,  having  marched 
down  the  western  bank  by  a  circuitous  route,  was 
camped  at  Carthage  in  Louisiana  ready  to  be  ferried 
across  the  Mississippi,  and  on  the  30th  of  April  it 
landed  on  the  eastern  side  at  Bruinsburg,  south  of 
Vicksburg. 

There  began  the  wonderful  campaign  which  ended 
two  months  later  in  Pemberton's  capitulation  of  the 
rebel  stronghold.  "When  this  landing  was  effected," 
Grant  says,  "I  felt  a  degree  of  relief  scarcely  ever 
equaled  since.  Vicksburg  was  not  yet  taken  it  is  true, 
nor  were  its  defenders  demoralized  by  any  of  our 
previous  moves.  I  was  now  in  the  enemy's  country 
with  a  vast  river  and  the  stronghold  of  Vicksburg 
between  me  and  my  base  of  supplies.  But  I  was  on 
dry  ground  on  the  same  side  of  the  river  with  the 
enemy.  All  the  campaigns,  labor,  hardships,  and 
exposures  from  the  month  of  December  previous  to 
this  time  that  had  been  made  and  endured,  were  for 
the  accomplishment  of  this  one  object." 

How  in  a  flash  he  seized  Port  Gibson  and  then, 
without  a  word  to  Halleck,  and  in  the  face  of  Sher- 


118  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

man's  doubts,  with  only  three  days'  rations,  cutting 
loose  from  base,  struck  out  for  Vicksburg,  feeding  his 
army  off  the  country  as  he  rushed  them  on  from 
fight  to  fight;  how  Halleck,  too  late  learning  what 
was  on,  ordered  him  back  to  help  Banks  at  Port 
Hudson;  how  he  caught  Joe  Johnston  at  Jackson, 
separating  Johnston's  Army  from  Pemberton's, 
and  seized  the  Mississippi  capital  and  railroad  center, 
cutting  off  Vicksburg  from  this  depot  of  supplies; 
how  in  eighteen  days  he  marched  two  hundred  miles, 
won  five  pitched  battles,  took  eight  thousand  pris 
oners  and  eighty  cannon,  scattered  a  hostile  army 
larger  than  his  own  fighting  on  its  chosen  ground,  and 
had  the  rebel  army  penned  in  Vicksburg,  is  a  story 
whose  mere  recital  emblazons  the  chronicles  of  war. 
"This  is  a  campaign,"  cried  Sherman  as  he  rode  out 
with  Grant  on  May  18,  and  looked  down  on  the 
bluffs  where  he  had  been  repulsed  so  signally  five 
months  before.  "Until  this  moment  I  never  thought 
your  movement  a  success.  But  this  is  a  success,  even 
if  we  never  take  the  town." 

There  came  one  set-back.  On  May  22,  hearing  that 
Johnston  was  gathering  an  army  to  raise  the  siege,  he 
ventured  an  assault,  and  after  a  reverse,  misled  by 
an  appeal  for  aid  from  McClernand,  who  fancied 
he  alone  was  carrying  the  forts,  ordered  a  second 
assault,  resulting  in  a  bad  repulse.  He  then  renewed 


VICKSBURG  119 

the  siege,  his  army  strengthened  by  recruits  to  sev 
enty  thousand  men,  and  on  the  morning  of  July 
4,  swift  on  the  heels  of  Gettysburg,  he  entered 
Vicksburg,  Pemberton  surlily  surrendering  thirty- 
one  thousand  men  and  one  hundred  and  seventy- 
two  pieces  of  artillery.  "Grant  .  .  ."  Dana  wired 
to  Stanton,  "was  received  by  Pemberton  with  .  .  . 
marked  impertinence.  .  .  .  He  bore  it  like  a  phi 
losopher." 

After  all  was  over  Grant  handed  back  to  Sherman 
the  letter  Sherman  wrote  advising  him  against  his 
daring  plan.  He  says  the  subject  was  not  mentioned 
subsequently  by  either  till  the  end  of  the  war,  and 
that  "Sherman  gave  the  same  energy  to  make  the 
campaign  a  success  that  he  would  or  could  have  done 
if  it  had  been  ordered  by  himself." 

"The  campaign  of  Vicksburg,"  Sherman  later 
wrote,  "in  its  conception  and  execution,  belonged  ex 
clusively  to  General  Grant,  not  only  in  the  great 
whole,  but  in  the  thousands  of  its  details.  I  still 
retain  many  of  his  letters  and  notes,  all  in  his  own 
handwriting,  prescribing  the  routes  of  march  for 
divisions  and  detachments,  specifying  even  the 
amount  of  food  and  tools  to  be  carried  along.  Many 
persons  gave  his  adjutant-general,  Rawlins,  the 
credit  for  these  things,  but  they  were  in  error;  for  no 
commanding  general  of  any  army  ever  gave  more  of 


120  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

his  personal  attention  to  details,  or  wrote  so  many 
of  his  own  orders,  reports,  and  letters,  as  General 
Grant."  1 

Even  if  Grant's  career  had  ended  then,  his  fame 
was  safe,  for  subsequent  defeat  could  not  have 
spoiled  the  perfect  record  of  his  high  achievement. 
No  matter  what  had  gone  before  or  what  might 
happen  after  Vicksburg,  he  now  had  confidence  in  his 
own  destiny.  He  felt  that  he  would  be  the  one  to 
bring  the  war  to  a  successful  end.  Vicksburg  had  been 
before  his  eye  ever  since  Paducah,  and  it  had  come  at 
last  to  him  among  a  great  array  of  Union  generals 
who  had  at  the  beginning  more  prestige,  without 
intrigue  for  self -advancement  on  his  part,  and  in  the 
face  of  personal  rebuffs  which  would  have  dismayed 
a  man  of  ordinary  mould. 

"Every  one  has  his  superstitions,"  he  wrote  years 
later,  referring  to  his  silence  under  criticism.  "  One  of 
mine  is  that  in  positions  of  great  responsibility  every 
one  should  do  his  duty  to  the  best  of  his  ability  when 
assigned  by  competent  authority,  without  applica 
tion  or  the  use  of  influence  to  change  his  position. 

"While  at  Cairo  I  had  watched  with  very  great 

interest  the  operations  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac, 

looking  upon  that  as  the  main  field  of  the  war.  I  had 

no  idea  myself  of  ever  having  any  large  command, 

1  Memoirs  of  W.  T.  Sherman,  vol.  i,  p.  362. 


VICKSBURG  121 

nor  did  I  suppose  that  I  was  equal  to  one;  but  I  said 
I  would  give  anything  if  I  were  commanding  a 
brigade  of  cavalry  in  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  and 
believed  that  I  could  do  some  good.  Captain  Hillyer 
suggested  that  I  make  application  to  be  transferred 
there  to  command  the  cavalry.  I  then  told  him  that 
I  would  cut  my  right  arm  off  first." 

He  had  now  conquered  Halleck's  prejudice  as  he 
had  justified  the  trust  of  Lincoln.  "In  boldness  of 
plan,  rapidity  of  execution,  and  brilliancy  of  results," 
wrote  Halleck  handsomely,  "these  operations  will 
compare  most  favorably  with  those  of  Napoleon 
about  Ulm."  Sherman  wrote  years  later  that  the 
campaign  would  rank  with  the  best  of  the  young 
Napoleon  in  Italy  in  1796,  and  that  the  "position  at 
Vicksburg  was  more  difficult  than  that  at  Sebasto- 
pol,"  which  he  had  seen. 

"I  would  not  have  risked  the  passing  of  the  batter 
ies  at  Vicksburg  and  trusting  to  the  long  route  by 
Grand  Gulf  and  Jackson  to  reach  what  we  both  knew 
were  the  key-points  to  Vicksburg,"  Sherman  ac 
knowledged  when  the  siege  was  over.  "But  I  would 
have  aimed  to  reach  the  same  points  from  Grenada. 
But  both  aimed  at  the  same  points,  and  though  both 
of  us  knew  little  of  the  actual  ground,  it  is  wonderful 
how  well  they  have  realized  our  military  calculations. 
As  we  sat  at  Oxford  last  November  we  saw  in  the 


122  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

future  what  we  now  realize,  and  like  the  architect 
who  sees  developed  the  beautiful  vision  of  his  brain, 
we  feel  an  intense  satisfaction  at  the  realization  of  our 
military  plans.  I  thank  God  no  President  was  near  to 
thwart  our  plans  and  that  the  short-sighted  public 
could  not  drive  us  from  our  object  till  the  plan  was 
fully  realized." 

Yet  Sherman  always  thought  that  if  Grant  had 
kept  on  from  Oxford  after  the  capture  of  his  supplies 
at  Holly  Springs,  he  would  have  saved  the  six  months 
used  in  reaching  Bruinsburg  and  have  achieved  the 
same  result.  Grant  might  have  done  this  had  his 
troops  then  had  the  seasoning  he  gave  them  later. 

The  chapter  cannot  properly  be  closed  save  with 
the  letter  Lincoln  wrote  to  Grant  at  Vicksburg  within 
a  week  after  it  had  fallen :  — 

"I  do  not  remember  that  you  and  I  ever  met  per 
sonally.  I  write  this  now  as  a  grateful  acknowledg 
ment  for  the  almost  inestimable  service  you  have  done 
the  country.  I  wish  to  say  a  word  further.  When  you 
first  reached  the  vicinity  of  Vicksburg,  I  thought  you 
should  do  what  you  finally  did  —  march  the  troops 
across  the  neck,  run  the  batteries  with  the  transports, 
and  thus  go  below;  and  I  never  had  any  faith,  except 
a  general  hope  that  you  knew  better  than  I,  that  the 
Yazoo  Pass  expedition  and  the  like  could  succeed. 
When  you  got  below  and  took  Port  Gibson,  Grand 


VICKSBURG  123 

Gulf,  and  vicinity,  I  thought  you  should  go  down  the 
river  and  join  General  Banks,  and  when  you  turned 
northward,  east  of  the  Big  Black,  I  feared  it  was  a 
mistake.  I  now  wish  to  make  the  personal  acknowl 
edgment  that  you  were  right  and  I  was  wrong." 

Lincoln  at  once  named  Grant  a  major-general  in 
the  regular  army.  He  had  not  needed  Stanton's 
bribe. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

RAWLINS  AND  DANA 

"  THE  simple  fact  is  that  the  great  character  which 
has  passed  into  history  under  the  name  of  Grant  was 
compounded  of  both  Grant  and  Rawlins  in  nearly 
equal  parts.  While  one  has  become  a  national  hero 
whose  fame  will  never  die,  the  other  unnecessarily 
effaced  himself  and  is  now  scarcely  known  beyond  the 
acquaintance  of  his  surviving  comrades  or  the  limits 
of  the  community  from  which  both  took  up  arms  for 
the  cause  of  the  Union."  Thus  a  distinguished  soldier, 
who  was  on  Grant's  staff  and  intimate  with  both  men, 
has  written. 1  It  has  even  been  asserted  that  Rawlins 
spoke  with  Grant's  lips  and  looked  out  of  Grant's  eyes 
so  closely  did  they  intertwine.  Hyperbole  like  this 
will  not  be  credited  by  those  who  read  the  record,  yet 
it  is  no  great  stretch  to  say  that  Rawlins  was  Grant's 
conscience,  though  he  did  not  compare  with  him  in 
the  peculiar  qualities  which  were  responsible  for 
Grant's  success. 

It  was  Grant's  great  good  fortune  that,  in  the 
casual  thought  he  gave  his  staff  when  he  became  a 
brigadier,  he  should  have  hit  on  Rawlins,  a  crude, 
young  lawyer  who  had  worked  his  way  up  from  the 

1  General  James  H.  Wilson,  Life  of  Charles  A.  Dana,  p.  241. 


RAWLINS   AND   DANA  125 

charcoal  pit,  whom  Grant  had  hardly  seen  until  the 
first  war  meeting  in  Galena,  and  who  had  caught  his 
fancy  there  in  an  impassioned  plea  for  volunteers. 
With  one  or  two  exceptions  the  early  members  of  his 
staff,  chosen  for  old  times'  sake  or  to  please  his  family, 
were  found  to  be  incumbrances  and  were  perforce 
discarded  as  he  shouldered  heavier  burdens,  to  be 
replaced  by  men  like  Wilson,  Porter,  Comstock, 
Badeau,  Leet,  and  Babcock,  each  of  whom  had  some 
peculiar  merit.  Rawlins  and  Bowers  were  with  him 
till  they  died.  But  indispensable  as  Rawlins  came  to 
be,  there  is  no  evidence  that  he  contributed  to 
Grant's  supreme  achievement  except  by  giving  him 
unselfishly  the  service  of  an  unfailing  adjutant  and 
devoted  friend.  He  had  scant  learning  and  no  mili 
tary  training  but  what  he  gained  in  camp  with  Grant. 
He  was  robustly  honest,  grim  of  face  and  crudely 
mannered,  outspoken  and  explosive  with  profanity, 
at  heart  a  Puritan.  He  protected  Grant  in  countless 
ways  from  those  who  would  impose  on  his  simplicity, 
made  others  show  Grant  deference  which  Grant 
would  not  exact  himself,  and  watched  him  con 
stantly  to  save  him  from  mistakes.  Perhaps  his 
greatest  service  was  in  keeping  him  from  drink,  for 
he  appreciated  more  than  Grant  the  handle  envious 
rivals  made  of  any  lapse,  and  that  while  Grant  might 
drink  no  more  than  others,  he  could  not  afford  to 


126  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

drink  as  much,  by  very  reason  of  the  stories  which 
were  widely  spread  and  of  the  damage  they  might  do 
the  Union  cause.  Of  course  there  is  no  question  of 
Grant's  habit,  and  that  at  times  he  favored  it  too 
much,  but  envious  tongues  gave  it  far  greater  em 
phasis  than  it  deserved.  If  Grant  had  not  been  as 
successful  as  he  was,  his  habits  would  have  cut  no 
figure.  Who  cares  if  other  Union  generals  abstained 
or  not?  Yet  those  who  did  were  in  a  small  minority. 
With  some  it  is  about  their  only  claim  to  fame. 
Lincoln,  responding  about  this  time  to  an  appeal 
from  Sons  of  Temperance,  quizzically  remarked  that 
"in  a  hard  struggle  I  do  not  know  but  what  it  is 
some  consolation  to  be  aware  that  there  is  some  in 
temperance  on  the  other  side  too." 

Charles  A.  Dana,  who  had  been  sent  by  Stan  ton 
to  spy  out  the  Western  armies  and  learn  the  truth 
of  the  conflicting  tales  about  their  generals,  Grant 
in  particular,  and  give  him  independent  informa 
tion,  wrote  him  of  Rawlins  after  Vicksburg:  "Lieu 
tenant-Colonel  Rawlins  never  loses  a  moment  and 
never  gives  himself  any  indulgence  except  swear 
ing  and  scolding.  ...  A  townsman  of  Grant's,  and 
has  a  great  influence  over  him,  especially  because  he 
watches  him  day  and  night,  and  whenever  he  com 
mits  the  folly  of  tasting  liquor  hastens  to  remind 
him  that  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  he  gave  him 


RAWLINS   AND   DANA  127 

(Rawlins)  his  word  of  honor  not  to  touch  a  drop  as 
long  as  it  lasted.  Grant  thinks  Rawlins  a  first-rate 
adjutant,  but  I  think  this  is  a  mistake.  He  is  too 
slow,  and  can't  write  the  English  language  cor 
rectly  without  a  great  deal  of  careful  consideration. 
Indeed  illiterateness  is  a  general  characteristic  of 
Grant's  staff  and  in  fact  of  Grant's  generals  and 
regimental  officers  of  all  ranks." 

Over  thirty  years  later,  with  the  full  history  of  the 
war  in  retrospect,  he  gave  his  judgment  that  Rawlins 
was  one  of  the  most  valuable  men  in  the  army.  "He 
had  a  very  able  mind,  clear,  strong,  and  not  subject  to 
hysterics.  He  bossed  everything  at  Grant's  head 
quarters.  He  had  very  little  respect  for  persons, 
and  a  rough  style  of  conversation.  I  have  heard  him 
curse  at  Grant,  when,  according  to  his  judgment,  the 
general  was  doing  something  that  he  thought  he  had 
better  not  do.  But  he  was  entirely  devoted  to  his 
duty,  with  the  clearest  judgment,  and  perfectly  fear 
less.  Without  him  Grant  would  not  have  been  the 
same  man.  Rawlins  was  essentially  a  good  man, 
though  he  was  one  of  the  most  profane  men  I  ever 
knew;  there  was  no  guile  in  him  —  he  was  as  upright 
and  as  genuine  a  character  as  I  ever  came  across."1 

Dana  himself,  though  a  civilian,  was  a  factor  in  the 
fixing  of  Grant's  reputation.  Stanton  and  Lincoln 
1  Recollections  of  the  Civil  War,  p.  62. 


128  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

owed  to  him  their  knowledge  of  the  Vicksburg  ven 
ture  as  the  campaign  progressed,  for  Grant  was 
chary  of  his  correspondence,  sent  only  brief  dis 
patches,  neglected  expositions  of  his  plans,  moved 
silently  and  swiftly  to  his  ends,  ignoring  the  mali 
cious  work  of  slanderous  tongues.  It  needed  Dana's 
quick  intelligence,  keen  eye,  and  vivid  pen  to  dissi 
pate  the  fogs  which  clouded  Washington.  It  was  due 
in  large  degree  to  his  reports  that  Lincoln  clung  to 
Grant  while,  pending  Vicksburg,  politicians  pressed 
him  to  make  a  change,  demanding  Grant's  removal 
almost  up  to  the  very  day  the  town  capitulated.  "I 
rather  like  the  man,"  said  Lincoln;  "I  think  we  will 
try  him  a  little  longer." 

It  was  Dana  who  set  Stanton  right  about  McCler- 
nand,  and  kept  him  straight;  told  him  the  manner  of 
man  he  had  in  Grant,  described  the  obstacles  which 
must  be  overcome,  and  gave  him  thumb-nail  sketches 
of  the  generals  in  the  West. 

Grant  trusted  Dana,  who  lived  at  headquarters 
throughout  the  siege  of  Vicksburg,  to  keep  Stanton 
posted,  and  turned  his  own  attention  to  more  pressing 
things.  Dana,  with  Rawlins  and  Wilson  of  the  staff, 
were  with  Grant  constantly,  and  in  his  confidence, 
so  far  as  that  was  true  of  any  one,  for  Grant,  who 
never  held  a  council  of  war,  harbored  his  thoughts 
and  husbanded  his  intimacies:  "I  heard  what  men 


RAWLINS   AND   DANA  129 

had  to  say  —  the  stream  of  talk  at  headquarters  — 
but  I  made  up  my  own  mind  and  from  my  written 
orders  my  staff  got  their  first  knowledge  of  what  was 
to  be  done.  No  living  man  knew  of  plans  until  they 
were  matured  and  decided."  *  "  Grant  was  an  uncom 
mon  fellow,"  Dana  writes;  "the  most  modest,  the 
most  disinterested,  and  the  most  honest  man  I  ever 
knew,  with  a  temper  that  nothing  could  disturb,  and 
a  judgment  that  was  judicial  in  its  comprehensive 
ness  and  wisdom.  Not  a  great  man,  except  morally; 
not  an  original  or  brilliant  man;  but  sincere,  thought 
ful,  deep,  and  gifted  with  courage  that  never  fal 
tered;  when  the  time  came  to  risk  all,  he  went  in 
like  a  simple-hearted,  unaffected,  unpretending  hero, 
whom  no  ill  omens  could  deject,  and  no  triumph  un 
duly  exalt.  A  social,  friendly  man,  too,  fond  of  a 
pleasant  joke  and  also  ready  with  one;  but  liking 
above  all  a  long  chat  of  an  evening,  and  ready  to  sit 
up  with  you  all  night  talking  in  the  cold  breeze  in 
front  of  his  tent.  Not  a  man  of  sentimentality,  not 
demonstrative  in  friendship,  but  always  holding  to 
his  friends,  and  just  even  to  the  enemies  he  hated." 2 
Dana  after  Vicksburg  suggested  Grant  as  the 
commander  of  the  Armies  of  the  West. 

1  Young,  vol.  n,  p.  306. 

2  Recollections  of  the  Civil  War,  p.  61. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

CHATTANOOGA  AND  MISSIONARY  RIDGE 

GRANT  would  have  lost  no  time  in  clearing  up  the 
Mississippi  problem  if  Washington  had  given  him  his 
head.  He  could  have  captured  Mobile  easily  with  his 
exultant  army,  and  operating  from  that  base,  have 
thrown  troops  against  Bragg's  rear,  diverting  him 
from  southern  Tennessee  where  he  confronted  Rose- 
crans.  But  Washington  had  other  plans,  and  again, 
as  after  Corinth,  dispersed  Grant's  army,  sending 
troops  to  Schofield  in  Missouri,  to  Banks  in  Louis 
iana,  and  to  Burnside  in  East  Tennessee.  Lincoln 
would  have  invaded  Texas  to  threaten  Maximilian 
in  Mexico,  and  he  was  set  upon  relieving  the  loyal 
mountaineers  of  East  Tennessee.  The  scattering  of 
Grant's  army  and  his  forced  idleness  gave  Joe  John 
ston  an  opportunity  to  recruit  his  forces  and  to 
gather  up  the  men  whom  Grant,  with  a  mistaken 
generosity,  had  let  march  out  of  Vicksburg  on  parole, 
thus  strengthening  the  army  which,  on  the  19th  and 
20th  of  September,  came  near  crushing  Rosecrans 
at  Chickamauga  Creek,  compelling  his  retreat  to 
Chattanooga  with  McCook  and  Crittenden,  while 
Thomas  with  his  corps  stood  alone  unshakable  for 
hours  against  great  odds,  thus  saving  a  complete 


CHATTANOOGA  AND  MISSIONARY  RIDGE     131 

catastrophe  and  gaining  for  himself  the  name  he 
carried  ever  after  —  "the  Rock  of  Chickamauga." 

The  Army  of  the  Cumberland  might  have  been 
spared  this  blow  had  its  commander,  obedient  to 
Grant's  suggestion  and  Halleck's  order,  moved 
against  Bragg  while  Vicksburg  was  in  siege  and  John 
ston  occupied  in  trying  to  aid  Pemberton,  but  Rose- 
crans  objected  then  because  he  said  it  was  a  military 
maxim  "not  to  fight  two  decisive  battles  at  the  same 
time."  If  true,  Grant  thought  this  maxim  was  not 
applicable:  "It  would  be  bad  to  be  defeated  in  two 
decisive  battles  fought  the  same  day,  but  it  would  not 
be  bad  to  win  them"  —a  flash  which  throws  light 
on  the  difference  between  the  two.  Rosecrans  was  a 
trained  and  scholarly  commander,  ingratiating,  vacil 
lating,  fearful  to  give  offense,  loved  by  his  men, 
grieving  incessantly  that  his  hazy  aims  were  balked 
by  those  above  him.  Grant  thought  him  insincere 
and  Jesuitical,  while  he  thought  Grant  a  fool  for 
luck. 

During  this  time  there  was  much  talk  about  Grant's 
coming  East  to  take  command,  as  other  Western 
generals  had  been  brought  East  before.  McClellan, 
Pope,  Burnside,  and  Hooker  had  been  found  wanting 
one  by  one;  and  now  Meade,  victorious  at  Gettys 
burg,  had  lost  the  confidence  of  Lincoln  by  letting 
Lee  cross  the  Potomac  without  another  fight.  But 


132  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Grant  discouraged  these  suggestions.  "They  have 
there  able  officers  who  have  been  brought  up  with 
that  army  and  to  import  a  commander  to  place  over 
them  certainly  could  produce  no  good.  While  I 
would  not  positively  disobey  an  order,  I  would  have 
objected  most  vehemently  to  taking  that  command 
or  any  other  except  the  one  I  have  —  I  can  do  more 
with  this  army  than  it  would  be  possible  for  me  to 
do  with  any  other,  without  time  to  make  the  same 
acquaintance  with  others  that  I  have  with  this.  .  .  . 
I  believe  I  know  the  exact  capacity  of  every  general 
in  my  command." 

But  a  far  greater  opportunity  was  at  hand.  In  the 
rout  at  Chickamauga,  before  he  knew  that  Thomas 
had  stood  firm,  Dana,  watching  the  day  for  Stanton, 
had  wired  him,  "My  dispatch  to-day  is  of  deplorable 
importance;  Chickamauga  is  as  fatal  a  name  in  our 
history  as  Bull  Run."  There  was  dismay  in  Washing 
ton,  which  was  not  relieved  by  later  tidings  of  the 
plight  in  which  defeat  and  indecision  had  left  the 
Army  of  the  Cumberland  —  Rosecrans  was  cooped 
up  in  Chattanooga  strongly  intrenched,  but  cut  off 
from  supplies  by  Bragg,  whose  eager  army  held  the 
hills  above  the  town.  He  might  hold  out  till  rein 
forced  by  Sherman  and  Hooker,  who  were  on  the 
way,  but  food  and  fuel  were  getting  scarce,  his 
horses  starving,  and  winter  coming  on.  His  idle 


CHATTANOOGA   AND  MISSIONARY  RIDGE     133 

army  was  demoralized  and  he  seemed  dazed.  In 
spite  of  the  respect  his  men  had  for  him,  he  must 
be  relieved  of  his  command  in  order  to  escape  a 
worse  catastrophe. 

Stanton  would  have  supplanted  him  with  Thomas, 
but  Thomas,  who  six  months  before  stood  loyally  by 
Buell  when  offered  Buell's  place,  now  stood  as  loyally 
by  Buell's  successor.  He  said  he  would  not  take  that 
command,  though  he  would  welcome  any  other.  He 
would  do  nothing  to  countenance  suspicion  of  in 
trigue  against  his  commander's  interest. 

Then  Stanton,  acting  quickly,  created  a  brand- 
new  division  comprising  everything  between  the  Al- 
leghanies  and  the  Mississippi  except  Banks  at  New 
Orleans;  chose  Grant  for  command,  ordered  Grant 
to  Louisville,  hurried  West  himself,  and  on  the  train 
to  Louisville  told  Grant,  whom  he  had  never  seen 
before,  the  plan  he  had  in  mind.  Word  came  to 
Louisville  from  Dana  that  Rosecrans  was  thinking 
of  retreat  —  a  disastrous  thing  which  would  have 
left  the  rebels  in  complete  control  of  one  of  the  three 
great  strongholds  of  the  war,  whereupon  Grant,  re 
sponding  instantly  to  Stanton's  frantic  urging,  as 
sumed  immediate  command  of  the  Divison  of  the 
Mississippi,  and  simultaneously  wired  Thomas  as 
signing  him  to  head  the  Army  of  the  Cumberland 
and  telling  him  he  must  "hold  Chattanooga  at  all 


134  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

hazards."  Thomas  replied  by  telegraph,  "We  will 
hold  the  town  till  we  starve." 

That  night  Grant  went  to  the  theater,  to  the  great 
distress  of  Rawlins,  who  looked  upon  it  as  a  time 
for  penitence  and  prayer.  At  daybreak  he  was  on 
his  way  by  rail  and  swollen  roads  to  Chattanooga, 
where  he  arrived  October  23,  "wet,  dirty,  and  well," 
as  Dana  wired  to  Stanton,  but  still  on  crutches  and 
suffering  agony  with  his  crushed  leg. 

Those  present  at  Grant's  meeting  with  Thomas 
at  headquarters,  soon  after  his  arrival,  agree  that 
Thomas  treated  him  with  curious  lack  of  courtesy, 
forgetful  that  he  was  his  guest  as  well  as  his  com 
manding  general.  Just  why  has  never  been  ex 
plained,  but  it  is  certain  that  throughout  the  war 
there  was  reserve  between  the  two;  for  neither  ever 
learned  truly  to  comprehend  the  other,  and  with 
Thomas  there  was  a  marked  absence  of  the  cordial 
feeling  which  was  so  strikingly  in  evidence  with 
Sheridan  and  Sherman.  While  no  one  ever  saw  in 
Thomas  a  trace  of  envious  rivalry  with  Grant,  his 
coolness  was  transmuted  into  hot  controversy  by 
his  partisans  in  the  great  Army  of  the  Cumberland. 

A  swift  change  came  with  Grant's  arrival.  That 
night,  says  Horace  Porter,  who  saw  him  then  for  the 
first  time,  after  sitting  absolutely  silent  for  a  while 
listening  attentively  to  what  the  others  said  and  fol- 


CHATTANOOGA  AND  MISSIONARY  RIDGE     135 

lowing  on  the  map  the  disposition  of  the  troops,  he 
straightened  in  his  chair  and  began  firing  questions 
at  his  new  subordinates,  pertinent,  incisive,  compre 
hensive,  showing  that  he  had  in  mind  not  only  the 
prompt  lifting  of  the  embargo  on  supplies,  —  "open 
ing  up  the  cracker  line,"  he  called  it,  —  but  a  speedy 
move  against  the  enemy.  He  was  as  always  eager  to 
push  on.  Then  turning  to  a  table  he  wrote  dispatches 
for  an  hour  —  the  first  to  Halleck:  "Have  just  ar 
rived;  I  will  write  to-morrow.  Please  approve  order 
placing  Sherman  in  command  of  Department  of  the 
Tennessee,  with  headquarters  in  the  field."  The  next 
day,  with  Thomas  and  "Baldy"  Smith,  he  viewed 
the  Union  lines,  and  ordered  Smith  to  set  at  once 
upon  the  work  of  opening  communication  with  sup 
plies. 

That  night  again  he  wrote  dispatches  with  his  own 
hand,  as  was  his  way.  "His  work  was  performed 
swiftly  and  uninterruptedly,  but  without  any  marked 
display  of  nervous  energy,"  writes  Porter.  "His 
thoughts  flowed  as  freely  from  his  mind  as  the  ink 
from  his  pen;  he  was  never  at  a  loss  for  an  expres 
sion,  and  seldom  interlined  a  word  or  made  a  material 
correction.  He  sat  with  his  head  bent  low  over  the 
table,  and  when  he  had  occasion  ...  he  would  glide 
rapidly  across  the  room  without  straightening  himself 
and  return  to  his  seat  with  his  body  still  bent  over  at 


136  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

about  the  same  angle  at  which  he  had  been  sitting. 
.  .  .  Looking  over  the  dispatches  I  found  that  he  was 
ordering  up  Sherman's  entire  force  from  Corinth  to 
within  supporting  distance,  and  was  informing  Hal- 
leek  of  the  dispositions  decided  upon  for  the  opening 
of  a  line  of  supplies  and  assuring  him  that  everything 
possible  would  be  done  for  the  relief  of  Burnside  in 
East  Tennessee  .  .  .  the  taking  of  vigorous  and  com 
prehensive  steps  in  every  direction  throughout  his 
new  and  extensive  command.  ...  I  cannot  dwell  too 
forcibly  on  the  deep  impression  made  ...  by  the 
exhibition  ...  of  his  singular  mental  powers  and 
his  rare  military  qualities.  .  .  .  Hardly  any  one  was 
prepared  to  find  one  who  had  the  grasp,  the  prompt 
ness  of  decision,  and  the  general  administrative 
capacity  which  he  displayed  at  the  very  start  as 
commander  of  an  extensive  military  division  in  which 
many  complicated  problems  were  presented  for  im 
mediate  solution."1 

When  Grant  appeared  in  Chattanooga  the  town 
was  in  almost  as  desperate  a  case  as  Vicksburg  just 
before  its  fall.  Bragg,  with  superior  forces  encamped 
on  Lookout  Mountain  and  Missionary  Ridge  only 
three  miles  away,  could  calmly  contemplate  the 
starving  enemy  below.  Burnside,  with  twenty-five 
thousand  men  in  siege  at  Knoxville  one  hundred  miles 

1  Campaigning  with  Grant,  p.  7. 


CHATTANOOGA  AND  MISSIONARY  RIDGE     137 

to  the  northeast,  was  also  in  sore  straits  and  calling 
vainly  for  relief.  Within  five  days,  as  the  result  of 
swift  and  daring  moves  by  "Baldy  "  Smith  and  others 
which  Grant  hastened,  the  "cracker  line"  was  open; 
there  was  no  further  danger  of  starvation,  surrender, 
or  retreat,  and  Grant  and  Thomas  were  in  position 
to  hold  the  town  all  winter  or  till  reinforcements 
should  arrive.  Shortly  Sherman  was  there  from  Mis 
sissippi  and  Hooker  from  the  East. 

And  now  there  broke  for  Grant  the  most  resplend 
ent  day  of  his  career.  He  had  no  thought  of  holding 
Chattanooga  with  hostile  guns  surveying  him  com 
placently  from  neighboring  heights.  He  would  wait 
only  till  the  forces  he  had  summoned  should  arrive. 
Then  he  would  leap  out  at  the  enemy.  As  early  as 
October  28  he  wired  to  Halleck:  "The  question  of 
supplies  may  now  be  regarded  as  settled.  If  the 
rebels  give  us  one  week  more  I  think  all  danger  of 
losing  territory  now  held  by  us  will  have  passed  away, 
and  preparations  may  commence  for  offensive  opera 
tions."  Sherman,  having  led  his  army  three  hundred 
miles  through  a  rough,  hostile  country,  rode  into 
Chattanooga  on  November  15,  and  one  week  later, 
on  November  23,  Grant  began  the  three  days'  fight 
of  Chattanooga,  the  most  completely  planned  of  all 
his  battles,  a  feat  unmarred  in  its  perfection  and  as 
a  spectacle  unequaled  in  the  history  of  war. 


138  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

The  secrecy  and  skill  of  the  preliminary  strategy, 
the  military  panorama,  with  its  sublime  scenic  set 
ting  unrolled  before  the  eyes  of  Grant  and  Thomas, 
posted  on  Orchard  Knob,  watching  their  armies  in 
glittering  pageant  march  to  undimmed  success,  the 
glimpse  of  Hooker  and  his  men  fighting  "above  the 
clouds  "  on  Lookout  Mountain,  the  marvelous  charge 
of  Sheridan  and  Wood  with  nearly  twenty  thousand 
bayonets  up  to  the  very  top  of  Missionary  Ridge, 
mowing  the  enemy  like  wheat,  the  panic-stricken 
flight  of  Bragg's  astonished  troops,  the  frantic  joy 
and  tumult  of  the  victorious  Union  army  as  Grant 
rode  down  the  lines,  blend  in  a  battle  picture  with  no 
parallel. 

The  three  days'  engagement  is  known  as  "Chat 
tanooga,"  the  third  day's  fight  as  "Missionary 
Ridge,"  in  memory  of  the  culminating  glory  of  a 
deed  which  has  been  called  "one  of  the  greatest 
miracles  in  military  history."  Dana,  who  stood  with 
Grant  and  Thomas  witnessing  the  charge,  wrote  the 
next  day:  "No  man  who  climbs  the  ascent  by  any  of 
the  roads  that  wind  above  its  front  can  believe  that 
eighteen  thousand  men  were  moved  up  its  broken 
and  crumbling  base  unless  it  was  his  fortune  to  wit 
ness  the  deed ;  it  seems  as  awful  as  a  visible  interposi 
tion  of  God.  Neither  Grant  nor  Thomas  intended  it. 
Their  orders  were  to  carry  the  rifle-pits  along  the 


CHATTANOOGA  AND  MISSIONARY  RIDGE     139 

base  of  the  ridge  and  capture  their  occupants;  but 
when  this  was  accomplished,  the  unaccountable 
spirit  of  the  troops  bore  them  bodily  up  those  im 
placable  steeps,  over  the  bristling  rifle-pits  on  the 
crest  and  the  thirty  cannon  enfilading  every  gully. 
The  order  to  storm  appears  to  have  been  given 
simultaneously  by  Generals  Sheridan  and  Wood, 
because  the  men  were  not  to  be  held  back." 

It  was  the  only  battle  of  the  war  in  which  its  four 
great  figures,  Grant,  Thomas,  Sherman,  and  Sheridan, 
were  engaged  together.  Knoxville  was  saved  at 
Chattanooga  as  Corinth  was  fought  at  Shiloh,  Burn- 
side  was  liberated  from  his  pen,  and  East  Tennessee 
was  cleared.  On  December  8  Lincoln  sent  Grant  this 
telegram:  "Understanding  that  your  lodgment  at 
Chattanooga  and  Knoxville  is  now  secure,  I  wish  to 
tender  you,  and  all  under  your  command,  my  more 
than  thanks,  my  profoundest  gratitude,  for  the  skill, 
courage,  and  perseverance  with  which  you  and  they, 
over  so  great  difficulties,  have  effected  that  impor 
tant  object.  God  bless  you  all !" 

Grant,  starting  with  Paducah,  had  moved  re- 
sistlessly,  slowly  at  first,  but  gathering  momentum 
as  he  advanced,  pressing  the  rebel  forces  steadily 
toward  Richmond.  A  sense  of  the  inevitable  was  be 
ginning  to  pervade  the  North,  and  to  be  felt  abroad. 
"  Thank  Heaven !  the  'coming  man,'  for  whom  we  have 


140  ULYSSES  S.   GRANT 

so  long  been  waiting,  seems  really  to  have  come," 
wrote  Motley  from  Vienna.  ".  .  .  Ulysses  Grant  is 
at  least  equal  to  any  general  now  living  in  any  part 
of  the  world,  and  by  far  the  first  that  our  war  has 
produced  on  either  side."1  A  German  writer  spoke  of 
Chattanooga  as  "an  action  which  both  for  scientific 
combination  and  bravery  of  execution  is  equal  to  any 
battle  of  modern  times  from  the  days  of  Frederick 
the  Great  downwards." 

It  happened  that  the  country  heard  of  Missionary 
Ridge  on  the  last  Thursday  in  November  —  Thanks 
giving  Day  —  just  as  it  heard  of  Vicksburg  on  July  4. 
It  was  the  week  after  the  Address  at  Gettysburg. 
Within  a  fortnight  a  bill  was  introduced  in  Congress 
reviving  the  grade  of  Lieutenant-General,  a  title 
which  Washington  had  borne.  Before  the  winter 
ended,  the  bill  had  passed  by  great  majorities  and 
Lincoln  had  given  Grant  the  rank  —  making  him 
General-in-Chief  of  all  the  armies  of  the  United 
States. 

1  The  Correspondence  of  John  Lothrop  Motley,  vol.  u,  p.  146. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

LIEUTENANT-GENERAL 

IT  was  Washburne,  his  earliest  influential  friend,  and 
at  times  almost  his  sole  defender,  who  first  proposed 
that  Grant  be  made  Lieutenant-General,  hardly  wait 
ing  for  Congress  to  assemble  before  he  introduced  the 
bill.  When  Grant  learned  what  was  doing  he  wrote 
at  once  from  Chattanooga :  — 

"I  feel  under  many  obligations  to  you  for  the  in 
terest  you  have  taken  in  my  welfare.  But  recollect 
that  I  have  been  highly  honored  already  by  the  Gov 
ernment,  and  do  not  ask  or  feel  that  I  deserve  any 
thing  more  in  the  shape  of  honors  or  promotions. 
A  success  over  the  enemy  is  what  I  crave  above  every 
thing  else,  and  desire  to  hold  such  an  influence  over 
those  under  my  command  as  to  enable  me  to  use 
them  to  the  best  advantage  to  secure  this  end."  * 

Lincoln  was  worried,  lest  at  last  "the  man  on 
horseback"  might  have  come,  who  with  an  army  at 
his  call  would  seize  the  reins  of  power;  for  at  that 
time  Grant  was  the  people's  hero  while  Lincoln  was 
in  rather  poor  repute  by  reason  of  the  scanty  harvest 
of  his  other  generals,  and  an  election  was  at  hand 
momentous  in  its  possibilities.  But  Lincoln  was  not 

1  Letters  to  a  Friend,  p.  32. 


142  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

kept  long  in  suspense.  "  I  am  not  a  candidate  for  any 
office,"  Grant  wrote  his  father.  "  All  I  want  is  to  be 
left  alone  to  fight  this  war  out."  To  a  friend  who 
wrote  him  that  he  had  it  in  his  power  to  be  the  next 
President  he  replied:  "This  is  the  last  thing  in  the 
world  I  desire.  I  would  regard  such  a  consummation 
as  highly  unfortunate  for  myself  if  not  for  the  coun 
try.  Through  Providence  I  have  attained  to  more 
than  I  ever  hoped,  and,  with  the  position  I  now  hold 
in  the  regular  army,  if  allowed  to  retain  it,  will  be 
more  than  satisfied."1  When  he  went  to  St.  Louis 
from  Nashville,  where  he  made  his  headquarters  that 
winter,  he  stayed  with  his  old  humble  friends,  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Boggs,  and  took  them  in  a  street-car  to  the 
theater. 

Lincoln,  who  longed  for  reelection,  not  only  on  his 
own  account,  but  because  he  felt  that  any  change  just 
then  would  mean  disaster  to  the  Union  cause,  heard 
these  things  gladly.  They  dissipated  his  unrest. 

Grant  would  have  followed  Missionary  Ridge  by 
throwing  his  army  from  Chattanooga  to  Mobile, 
thus  clearing  Georgia  of  the  rebel  troops,  cutting  the 
South  again  as  he  had  cut  it  at  the  Mississippi,  seiz 
ing  a  port  through  which  supplies  reached  the  Con 
federacy,  and  tightening  the  pressure  upon  Lee.  But 
Washington  did  not  approve,  and  consequently  he 
1  Richardson,  Personal  History,  p.  374. 


LIEUTENANT-GENERAL  143 

remained  at  Nashville  through  the  winter  getting  his 
army  ready  for  a  spring  campaign,  just  where  he  did 
not  know  until  after  he  was  named  Lieutenant-Gen- 
eral  and  went  to  Washington  for  his  commission.  It 
was  then  that  he  determined  to  take  command  in 
person  of  the  armies  in  Virginia  and  dispose  his  other 
armies  so  as  best  to  conquer  Lee.  But  before  he  left 
for  Washington  he  did  a  gracious  and  great-hearted 
thing.  He  wrote  to  Sherman  a  letter  which  will  live 
as  long  as  he  and  Sherman  are  remembered:  — 

"Whilst  I  have  been  eminently  successful  in  this 
war,  in  at  least  gaining  the  confidence  of  the  public, 
no  one  feels  more  than  I  how  much  of  this  suc 
cess  is  due  to  the  energy,  skill,  and  the  harmonious 
putting  forth  of  that  energy  and  skill,  of  those  whom 
it  has  been  my  good  fortune  to  have  occupying  subor 
dinate  positions  under  me.  There  are  many  officers 
to  whom  these  remarks  are  applicable  to  a  greater  or 
less  degree,  proportionate  to  their  ability  as  soldiers; 
but  what  I  want  is  to  express  my  thanks  to  you  and 
McPherson  as  the  men  to  whom,  above  all  others, 
I  feel  indebted  for  whatever  I  have  had  of  success. 
How  far  your  advice  and  assistance  have  been  of  help 
to  me,  you  know;  how  far  your  execution  of  whatever 
has  been  given  to  you  to  do  entitles  you  to  the  re 
ward  I  am  receiving,  you  can  not  know  as  well  as  I." 

Nor  will  men  forget  Sherman's  fine  reply :  — 


144  ULYSSES  S.   GRANT 

"  You  do  McPherson  and  myself  too  much  honor. 
At  Belmont  you  manifested  your  traits,  neither  of  us 
being  near.  At  Donelson,  also,  you  illustrated  your 
whole  character.  I  was  not  near,  and  McPherson  in 
too  subordinate  a  capacity  to  influence  you.  ...  I 
believe  you  are  as  brave,  patriotic,  and  just  as  the 
great  prototype,  Washington;  as  unselfish,  kind- 
hearted,  and  honest  as  a  man  should  be;  but  the  chief 
characteristic  is  the  simple  faith  in  success  you  have 
always  manifested,  which  I  can  liken  to  nothing  else 
than  the  faith  the  Christian  has  in  the  Saviour.  This 
faith  gave  you  victory  at  Shiloh  and  Vicksburg.  Also, 
when  you  have  completed  your  best  preparations, 
you  go  into  battle  without  hesitation,  as  at  Chat 
tanooga,  —  no  doubts,  no  reserve,  —  and  I  tell  you, 
it  was  this  that  made  us  act  with  confidence.  I  knew 
wherever  I  was,  that  you  thought  of  me;  and  if  I  got 
in  a  tight  place  you  would  come  —  if  alive.  My  only 
points  of  doubt  were  in  your  knowledge  of  grand 
strategy,  and  of  books  of  science  and  history;  but  I 
confess  your  common  sense  seems  to  have  supplied 
all  these." 

"Don't  stay  in  Washington,"  cried  Sherman. 
"Come  West;  take  to  yourself  the  whole  Mississippi 
Valley.  Let  us  make  it  dead  sure.  .  .  .  Here  lies  the 
seat  of  coming  empire;  and  from  the  West,  when  our 
task  is  done,  we  will  make  short  work  of  Charleston 


LIEUTENANT-GENERAL  145 

and  Richmond,  and  the  impoverished  coast  of  the 
Atlantic." 

But  Sherman  could  not  have  his  way.  Grant  would 
have  stayed  with  his  old  army  which  he  had  organ 
ized  and  knew;  but  he  was  quick  to  see  in  Washing 
ton  that  he  must  take  himself  the  task  of  facing  Lee, 
with  self-taught  strategists  near  by  ready  to  trip  his 
feet  in  their  entangling  schemes. 

His  coming  to  the  Capital,  which  he  had  never 
seen,  was  commonplace  —  almost  too  typical  of  his 
plain  habit  —  unostentatious  and  unknown.  Wait 
ing  his  turn  to  register  at  the  hotel,  the  clerk,  who 
sized  him  up  for  what  he  seemed,  assigned  him  to  a 
top-floor  room  and  gasped  with  incredulity  when  he 
saw  him  write,  "U.  S.  Grant  and  son  —  Galena, 
Illinois."  He  went  with  Cameron  to  the  White 
House  unannounced,  found  Lincoln  holding  a  recep 
tion  and  would  have  run  away  if  Seward  had  not 
taken  him  in  tow.  When  he  was  handed  his  com 
mission  the  next  day  by  Lincoln  and  read  the  few 
words  he  had  written  in  response  to  Lincoln's  little 
speech,  he  was  hardly  audible  and  fumbled  with  his 
paper  like  a  boy,  but  it  was  noticed  that  he  had  not 
taken  Lincoln's  diplomatic  hint  to  mollify  the  feel 
ings  of  the  Eastern  troops  by  saying  something  to 
ingratiate  himself  with  the  new  armies  placed  in  his 
command. 


146  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Pictures  have  come  down  to  us  of  his  appearance  at 
this  time  which  have  peculiar  interest  in  the  glimpse 
they  give  of  his  impress  upon  contemporaries  of 
quite  different  types.  Richard  Henry  Dana,  a  Bos 
ton  scholar  of  the  Brahmin  class,  happened  upon  him 
in  the  Willard  lobby,  and  thus  wrote:  "A  short, 
round-shouldered  man,  in  a  very  tarnished  major- 
general's  uniform  came  up.  .  .  .  He  had  no  gait,  no 
station,  no  manner,  rough,  light-brown  whiskers,  a 
blue  eye,  and  rather  a  scrubby  look  withal.  A  crowd 
formed  around  him;  men  looked,  stared  at  him,  as  if 
they  were  taking  his  likeness,  and  two  generals  were 
introduced.  Still,  I  could  not  get  his  name.  It  was 
not  Hooker.  Who  could  it  be?  ...  I  inquired  of  the 
bookkeeper.  'That  is  General  Grant.'  I  joined  the 
starers.  I  saw  that  the  ordinary,  scrubby-looking 
man,  with  a  slightly  seedy  look,  as  if  he  was  out  of 
office  and  on  half-pay  and  nothing  to  do  but  hang 
around  the  entry  of  Willard's,  cigar  in  mouth,  had  a 
clear  blue  eye,  and  a  look  of  resolution,  as  if  he  could 
not  be  trifled  with,  and  an  entire  indifference  to  the 
crowd  about  him.  Straight  nose,  too.  Still,  to  see 
him  talking  and  smoking  in  the  lower  entry  of  Wil 
lard's,  in  that  crowd,  in  such  times,  —  the  generalis 
simo  of  our  armies,  on  whom  the  destiny  of  the  em 
pire  seemed  to  hang!  .  .  .  He  gets  over  the  ground 
queerly.  He  does  not  march,  nor  quite  walk,  but 


LIEUTENANT-GENERAL  147 

pitches  along  as  if  the  next  step  would  bring  him  on 
his  nose.  But  his  face  looks  firm  and  hard,  and  his 
eye  is  clear  and  resolute,  and  he  is  certainly  natural, 
and  clear  of  all  appearance  of  self -consciousness."1 

Beside  this  we  can  set  the  portraiture  of  Horace 
Porter  and  Adam  Badeau,  who  had  lately  joined 
Grant's  staff :  Porter  describes  him  as  slightly  stooped, 
five  feet,  eight  inches  in  height,  weighing  only  a  hun 
dred  and  thirty-five  pounds,  modest  and  gentle  in  his 
manner;  face  not  perfectly  symmetrical,  the  left  eye 
a  little  lower  than  the  right;  his  brow,  high,  broad, 
and  rather  square  creased  with  horizontal  wrinkles 
which  helped  to  emphasize  the  somewhat  careworn 
look,  though  not  an  index  to  his  nature  which  was  al 
ways  buoyant.  "His  voice  was  exceedingly  musical 
and  one  of  the  clearest  in  sound  and  most  distinct  in 
utterance  that  I  have  ever  heard.  It  had  a  singular 
power  of  penetration,  and  sentences  spoken  by  him 
in  an  ordinary  tone  in  camp  could  be  heard  at  a  dis 
tance  which  was  surprising."  His  gait  in  walking  was 
decidedly  unmilitary ;  he  never  carried  his  body  erect; 
never  kept  step  to  the  airs  played  by  the  bands;  was 
often  slow  in  his  movements,  "but  when  roused  to 
activity  quick  in  every  motion  and  worked  with 
marvelous  rapidity."  2 

Badeau  tells  of  his  clear  but  not  penetrating  eye,  his 
1  Rhodes,  vol.  iv,  p.  438.  2  Campaigning  urith  Grant,  p.  13- 


148  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

heavy  jaw,  his  sharply  cut  mouth,  "which  had  a 
singular  power  of  expressing  sweetness  and  strength 
combined,  and  which  at  times  became  set  with  a 
rigidity  like  that  of  fate  itself."  The  habitual  ex 
pression  of  his  face  was  so  quiet  as  to  be  almost 
incomprehensible;  his  manner  plain,  placid,  almost 
meek;  "in  great  moments  disclosed  to  those  who 
knew  him  well  immense  but  still  suppressed  inten 
sity."  In  utterance  he  was  slow  and  sometimes 
embarrassed,  but  the  well-chosen  words  never  left  the 
slightest  doubt  of  what  he  meant  to  say.  "The  whole 
man  was  a  marvel  of  simplicity,  a  powerful  nature, 
veiled  in  the  plainest  possible  exterior.  He  discussed 
the  most  ordinary  themes  with  apparent  interest, 
and  turned  from  them  in  the  same  quiet  tones,  and 
without  a  shade  of  difference  in  his  manner,  to  deci 
sions  that  involved  the  fate  of  armies,  his  own  fame  or 
the  life  of  the  republic.  ..."  But  unexpectedly  and 
in  the  most  casual  way  he  would  utter  the  clearest 
ideas  in  the  tersest  form;  "announcing  judgments 
made  apparently  at  the  moment,  which  he  never  re 
versed  —  enunciating  opinions  or  declaring  plans  of 
the  most  important  character  in  the  plainest  words 
and  commonest  manner,  as  if  great  things  and  small 
were  to  him  of  equal  moment,  or  as  if  it  cost  him  no 
more  to  command  armies  than  to  direct  a  farm,  to 
capture  cities  than  to  drive  a  horse.  In  battle,  how 


LIEUTENANT-GENERAL  149 

ever,  the  sphinx  awoke  .  .  .  the  utterance  was  prompt, 
the  ideas  were  rapid,  the  judgment  was  decisive,  the 
words  were  those  of  command.  The  whole  man  be 
came  intense  as  it  were  with  a  white  heat."1 

Here  we  catch  a  composite  portrait  of  the  new  chief 
of  the  Union  forces  in  command  of  more  than  half  a 
million  men,  who,  setting  out  upon  the  campaign 
which  he  meant  should  crush  the  rebel  armies  and 
bring  an  end  to  war,  bore  with  him  to  the  front  these 
parting  words  from  Lincoln :  — 

"I  wish  to  express  in  this  way  my  entire  satisfac 
tion  with  what  you  have  done  up  to  this  time,  so  far 
as  I  understand  it.  The  particulars  of  your  plans  I 
neither  know  nor  seek  to  know.  You  are  vigilant  and 
self-reliant;  and,  pleased  with  this,  I  wish  not  to  ob 
trude  any  constraints  or  restraints  upon  you.  While 
I  am  very  anxious  that  any  great  disaster  or  capture 
of  our  men  in  great  numbers  shall  be  avoided,  I  know 
these  points  are  less  likely  to  escape  your  attention 
than  they  would  be  mine.  If  there  is  anything  wanting 
which  is  within  my  power  to  give,  do  not  fail  to  let 
me  know.  And  now,  with  a  brave  army  and  a  just 
cause,  may  God  sustain  you." 

"It  shall  be  my  earnest  endeavor  that  you  and  the 
country  shall  not  be  disappointed,"  was  Grant's 
reply.  "...  Should  my  success  be  less  than  I  desire 
1  Military  History  of  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  vol.  n,  p.  20. 


150  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

or  expect,  the  least  I  can  say  is,  the  fault  is  not  with 
you." 

Lincoln  had  already  told  Grant  in  their  first  inter 
view  that  all  he  wanted  or  had  ever  wanted  was  "one 
who  would  take  the  responsibility  and  act,  and  call 
on  him  for  all  the  assistance  needed";  and  Grant  had 
said  that  he  would  do  the  best  he  could  with  what 
he  had  at  hand  and  would  not  annoy  him  or  the  War 
Department  more  than  could  be  helped. 

It  was  like  Grant  that  through  the  war  he  did  not 
once  complain  to  Lincoln  or  appeal  to  Washington, 
even  when  Halleck  hazed  him  after  Donelsonand 
Shiloh;  and  Lincoln,  whp  wrote  often  quaintly  to  his 
other  generals,  regarded  with  complacency  one  whom 
he  could  let  alone.  McClellan,  Buell,  Hooker  had 
notes  of  admonition  in  which  reproof  was  deftly 
clothed  in  homely  phrase;  but  Grant  had  none.  Lin 
coln  told  Buell  he  did  not  understand  "why  we  can 
not  march  as  the  enemy  marches,  live  as  he  lives, 
and  fight  as  he  fights,  unless  we  admit  the  inferiority 
of  our  troops  and  of  our  generals."1  He  tarnished 
Hooker's  joy  in  being  placed  at  the  head  of  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac  with  a  memorable  letter  chiding  him 
for  thwarting  Burnside  and  telling  him  he  thought  it 
best  "for  you  to  know  there  are  some  things  in  re 
gard  to  which  I  am  not  quite  satisfied  with  you."2 

1  Lincoln's  Complete  Works,  vol.  n,  p.  248.  2  Ibid.,  p.  306. 


LIEUTENANT-GENERAL  151 

When  McClellan  wired  that  his  horses  were  sore- 
tongued  and  fatigued,  Lincoln  wired  back,  "  Will  you 
pardon  me  for  asking  what  the  horses  of  your  army 
have  done  since  Antietam  that  fatigues  anything?"  * 
These  are  mild  samples  of  rebukes  which  Lincoln 
penned.  One  cannot  see  him  writing  thus  to  Grant. 
1  Lincoln's  Complete  Works,  vol.  n,  p.  250. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE  CLINCH  WITH  LEE 

REBELLION  was  in  flower  when  Grant  was  put  in 
chief  command.  In  spite  of  his  successes  in  the  West 
and  those  gained  by  the  gallant  little  navy,  ten  South 
ern  States  were  in  revolt  —  nine  million  people  in 
habiting  eight  hundred  thousand  miles  —  an  empire 
in  extent  and  population,  rich  in  resources  and  the 
world's  respect.  Europe  still  looked  to  see  the  South 
prevail;  the  South  still  thought  itself  impregnable. 
After  three  years  of  war  she  seemed  no  nearer  con 
quest  than  at  first  except  to  those  who  saw  in  true  per 
spective  just  what  had  been  done  west  of  the  Alle- 
ghanies  and  along  the  coast. 

The  Northern  forces  held  the  Mississippi  strongly 
garrisoned  from  St.  Louis  to  its  mouth.  The  territory 
west  of  this  below  the  Arkansas  was  still  in  rebel 
hands  except  New  Orleans,  a  few  other  points  in 
southern  Louisiana,  and  a  small  post  in  Texas  near 
the  mouth  of  the  Rio  Grande.  The  Western  armies 
having  cleared  the  border  States  of  Tennessee, 
Kentucky,  and  Missouri,  except  for  irresponsible 
guerrilla  bands,  held  all  the  railroad  lines  from  Mem 
phis  as  far  east  as  Chattanooga  and  then  the  Tennes 
see  and  Holsten  Rivers  to  the  Alleghanies.  Western 


THE   CLINCH   WITH   LEE  153 

Virginia  had  been  transformed  into  a  loyal  State. 
The  Northern  forces  occupied  a  narrow  segment  of 
eastern  Virginia,  fringing  its  northern  border  to  the 
Rapidan.  With  garrisons  at  Norfolk  and  at  Fort 
Monroe,  they  held  the  entrance  to  the  James;  and 
there  were  federal  footholds  at  other  points  along 
the  coast.  The  motley  wooden  navy  had  maintained 
a  fairly  good  blockade  —  good  enough  to  throttle 
cotton  exports  from  the  South  and  starve  the  mills 
and  laborers  of  Lancashire. 

The  South,  though  worn  by  war,  was  full  of  spunk. 
Her  people,  trusting  to  their  press,  looked  upon 
Grant's  achievements  in  the  West  as,  at  the  worst, 
sporadic  Northern  victories ;  while  in  the  East,  which 
to  their  thinking  was  the  real  seat  of  the  war,  they 
could  see  nothing  but  unmarred  success.  They  had 
Manassas,  Fredericksburg,  Chancellorsville  to  brag 
about,  —  unquestioned  triumphs,  —  while  in  their 
eyes  Gettysburg  and  Antietam  were  merely  incidental 
to  protecting  Richmond  and  preventing  the  invasion 
of  the  South;  Gettysburg  was  a  rebuff,  not  a  signifi 
cant  defeat;  Antietam  (Sharpsburg,  as  they  termed 
it)  was  a  draw;  because  Meade  and  McClellan  were 
content  to  let  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  rest  upon  its 
victories,  without  annihilating  Lee  or  chasing  him 
back  home,  the  South  called  both  engagements  in 
decisive;  it  still  thought  Lee  invincible. 


154  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Against  this  unity  of  spirit  in  the  South  were  set  a 
Northern  public  honeycombed  with  rebel  sympathy, 
a  commerce  cankered  with  disloyalty,  a  party  organ 
ized  against  the  conduct  of  the  government  and 
Lincoln's  handling  of  the  war,  a  propaganda  of  dis 
trust  spread  by  disgruntled  politicians  and  censorious 
writers  disclosing  ugly  phases  of  an  irresponsible 
press-fed  democracy.  Grant  had  no  holiday  in  sight 
when  he  came  East. 

He  at  once  put  Sherman  at  the  head  of  the  Division 
of  the  Mississippi,  and  on  the  17th  of  March  an 
nounced  that  his  own  headquarters  would  be  in  the 
field  and  for  the  present  with  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac,  then  under  Meade's  command.  Meade 
nobly  offered  to  give  up  the  place  which  he  had  held 
since  Gettysburg,  nine  months  before,  thinking  that 
Grant  might  want  a  friend  like  Sherman  near  at  hand, 
and  said  that  for  himself  wherever  ordered  he  would 
do  his  best,  that  in  the  work  before  them  the  feeling 
or  wishes  of  no  one  person  should  interfere  with  pick 
ing  the  right  men.  Grant  did  not  demand  the  sacri 
fice.  "This  incident,"  he  says,  "gave  me  even  a  more 
favorable  opinion  of  Meade  than  did  his  great  victory 
at  Gettysburg  the  July  before.  It  is  men  who  wait  to 
be  selected,  and  not  those  who  seek,  from  whom  we 
may  always  expect  the  most  efficient  service." 

So  Meade  stayed  where  he  was;  but  it  was  not  a 


THE   CLINCH   WITH   LEE  155 

happy  case  no  matter  how  hard  each  might  try  to 
have  it  so.  Meade,  who  for  months  had  held  an  inde 
pendent  and  responsible  command,  looking  ahead  to 
crown  the  work  begun  at  Gettysburg  by  crushing 
Lee,  was  now  thrown  into  the  shade  of  one  he  scarcely 
knew  and  in  such  close  proximity  that,  however 
tactfully  the  thing  was  handled,  nothing  could  hide 
from  his  subordinates  the  ever-present  fact  that  he 
was  a  subordinate  himself.  As  for  Grant,  he  found 
himself  in  daily  contact  with  a  proud  army  to  which 
he  was  a  stranger,  whose  officers  and  men  through 
years  of  trial  in  camp  and  field  were  grown  attached 
to  their  own  generals.  Grant's  orders  couched  in 
general  terms,  trickling  through  Meade,  must  lose 
significance,  and  sometimes,  acting  of  necessity  in 
haste,  he  had  to  issue  them  direct,  greatly  to  Meade's 
chagrin.  Except  that  both  were  single-minded,  there 
were  few  points  of  likeness  between  these  two. 
"Sedgwick  and  Meade,"  said  Grant,  "were  men  so 
finely  formed  that  if  ordered  to  resign  their  generals' 
commissions  and  take  service  as  corporals,  they  would 
have  fallen  into  the  ranks  without  a  murmur."  So, 
too,  would  Grant,  and  so  would  Thomas,  but  it  is 
hard  to  think  of  many  more;  Sherman  would  have 
fallen  in,  but  with  profanity.  Meade  was  of  deli 
cate  grain  and  sensitive,  high-spirited,  confiding  dis 
appointments  only  to  his  wife.  "  You  may  look  now 


156  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

for  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  putting  laurels  on  the 
brow  of  another,"  he  writes  her;  and  at  the  end,  when 
Sheridan,  not  he,  was  made  Lieutenant-General  by 
Grant,  "we  must  find  consolation  in  the  consciousness 
.  .  .  that  it  is  the  crudest  and  meanest  act  of  injus 
tice."  1  But  from  the  public  Meade,  while  in  service, 
hid  his  hurt,  and  Grant  has  testified  that  Meade 
would  take  another's  plan,  even  when  he  did  not  ap 
prove  it,  and  carry  it  out  as  zealously  as  if  it  were 
his  own.  Yet  Meade  shrank  from  the  responsibility 
of  supreme  command;  in  full  authority  he  would 
hesitate.  After  Gettysburg,  when  Lincoln  wrote  that 
if  Meade  would  attack  Lee  "on  a  field  no  more  than 
equal  for  us,  the  honor  will  be  his  if  he  succeeds  and 
the  blame  may  be  mine  if  he  fails,"  Meade  replied  as 
it  is  unthinkable  that  Grant  would  have  responded  in 
like  case:  "It  has  been  my  intention  to  attack  the 
enemy,  if  I  can  find  him  on  a  field  no  more  than 
equal  for  us,  and  I  have  only  delayed  doing  so  from 
the  difficulty  of  ascertaining  his  exact  position,  and 
the  fear  that  in  endeavoring  to  do  so  my  communi 
cations  might  be  jeopardized."2 

And  Meade  had  other  traits  which  throw  needed 
light  upon  the  history  of  the  last  year  of  war.  His 
violent  temper  stirred  the  dislike  of  his  subordinates 

1  Life  and  Letters  of  George  Gordon  Meade,  vol.  II,  p.  300. 

2  Union  Portraits,  p.  76. 


THE   CLINCH   WITH   LEE  157 

and  in  a  measure  their  distrust.  Dana  writes  that  no 
man,  no  matter  what  his  business  or  his  service, 
approached  him  without  insult,  in  one  way  or  an 
other,  and  his  own  staff  officers  did  not  dare  speak  to 
him  unless  first  spoken  to.  In  action  on  the  field  and 
under  nervous  strain,  especially  when  things  went 
wrong,  he  was  irascible  up  to  the  very  edge  of 
madness. 

It  has  been  said  that  for  the  North  the  war  began 
with  Gettysburg  and  Vicksburg.  Till  then  the  time 
had  been  spent  in  training  generals  and  armies  and 
picking  the  right  man  to  lead.  Campaigns  had  been 
haphazard,  a  summer's  fighting  and  a  winter's  rest,  a 
victory  or  defeat  and  then  withdrawal  to  recuperate. 
There  had  been  no  comprehensive  military  plan,  no 
fixed  and  certain  aim.  Grant  said  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac  had  never  been  fought  through  to  a  finish, 
and  with  the  constant  meddling  from  Washington, 
induced  sometimes  by  politics,  he  might  have  said 
the  same  of  other  armies,  even  of  his  own  except  near 
Vicksburg  and  at  Chattanooga;  but  he  steadily  had 
this  in  mind:  that  there  could  be  no  stable  peace 
until  the  military  power  of  the  rebellion  was  entirely 
broken.  In  his  report  of  the  last  year's  operations  he 
presents  the  military  problem  which  he  faced  when  he 
assumed  command:  — 

"From  an  early  period  in  the  rebellion,"  he  says, 


158  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

"I  had  been  impressed  with  the  idea  that  active  and 
continuous  operations  of  all  the  troops  that  could  be 
brought  into  the  field,  regardless  of  season  and 
weather,  were  necessary  to  a  speedy  termination  of 
the  war.  The  resources  of  the  enemy,  and  his  numeri 
cal  strength,  were  far  inferior  to  ours;  but,  as  an  offset 
to  this,  we  had  a  vast  territory,  with  a  population 
hostile  to  the  Government,  to  garrison,  and  long  lines 
of  river  and  railroad  communications  to  protect,  to 
enable  us  to  supply  the  operating  armies. 

"The  armies  in  the  East  and  West  acted  inde 
pendently,  and  without  concert,  like  a  balky  team,  — 
no  two  ever  pulling  together,  —  enabling  the  enemy 
to  use  to  great  advantage  his  interior  lines  of  com 
munication  for  transporting  troops  from  East  to 
West,  reinforcing  the  army  most  vigorously  pressed, 
and  to  furlough  large  numbers,  during  seasons  of  in 
activity  on  our  part,  to  go  to  their  homes  and  do  the 
work  of  providing  for  the  support  of  their  armies.  It 
was  a  question  whether  our  numerical  strength  and 
resources  were  not  more  than  balanced  by  these  dis 
advantages  and  the  enemy's  superior  position." 

He  determined,  "first,  to  use  the  greatest  number 
of  troops  practicable  against  the  armed  force  of  the 
enemy,  preventing  him  from  using  the  same  force  at 
different  seasons  against  first  one  and  then  another  of 
our  armies,  and  the  possibility  of  repose  for  refitting 


THE   CLINCH   WITH   LEE  159 

and  producing  necessary  supplies  for  carrying  on  re 
sistance;  second,  to  hammer  continuously  against  the 
armed  force  of  the  enemy  and  his  resources,  until,  by 
mere  attrition,  if  in  no  other  way,  there  should  be 
nothing  left  to  him  but  an  equal  submission  with  the 
loyal  sections  of  our  common  country  to  the  Consti 
tution  and  laws  of  the  land." 

The  task  Grant  set  himself  was  to  destroy  Lee's 
army.  That  done  rebellion  must  disintegrate.  With 
Lee  eliminated  the  Confederacy  would  crumble  of 
itself;  there  could  be  no  formidable  fighting  elsewhere 
—  only  guerrilla  raids.  To  capture  Richmond  was 
important  because  it  was  Lee's  base.  To  occupy  the 
Southern  Capital  had  sentimental  value,  but  in 
Grant's  plan  it  was  subordinate  —  not  the  main 
purpose  of  his  strategy.  "On  to  Richmond!"  had 
been  the  Northern  cry  till  Grant's  arrival.  After  he 
came  the  aim  was  to  get  Lee.  "Lee's  army  will  be 
your  objective  point,"  he  ordered  Meade.  "Where- 
ever  Lee  goes,  you  will  go  also."  When  once  Lee 
should  capitulate,  Richmond  must  also  fall.  With 
Lee  at  large  his  tent  was  the  real  heart  of  the  Con 
federacy. 

Butler  at  Fort  Monroe  commanded,  with  the  Army 
of  the  James,  Richmond's  main  artery  from  the  sea. 
Grant  gave  him  a  spectacular  detail  —  to  seize  the 
Southern  Capital  and  cut  off  Lee's  supplies.  Opposed 


160  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

to  him  was  Beauregard.  A  small  force  of  12,000  men 
were  strung  along  the  banks  of  the  Potomac  protect 
ing  Washington,  guarding  against  a  possible  invasion 
of  the  North.  Sigel  was  in  command;  opposed  to  him 
was  Breckinridge.  Sherman  in  command  of  Grant's 
old  armies,  with  Thomas,  Schofield,  Hooker,  Howard, 
and  Slocum  under  him,  was  at  Chattanooga  ready  to 
lead  them  against  Johnston,  who  at  Dalton,  just 
across  the  Georgia  line,  had  an  army  of  100,000 
guarding  the  railway  center  at  Atlanta  one  hundred 
miles  below.  Banks  held  New  Orleans,  commanding 
the  Department  of  the  Gulf.  The  remaining  Union 
forces  were  scattered  among  many  garrisons. 

Grant's  purpose,  in  a  word,  was  to  crush  Lee  and 
Johnston  and  smother  the  Confederacy,  which  in 
volved  the  capture  of  Richmond  and  Atlanta  and 
shutting  off  the  few  remaining  breathing-places  on  the 
coast  through  which  the  South  could  touch  the  sea  — 
Mobile,  Savannah,  Charleston,  and  Wilmington,  pro 
tected  by  Fort  Fisher.  To  Sherman  he  gave  orders 
"to  move  against  Johnston's  army,  to  break  it  up 
and  to  get  into  the  interior  of  the  enemy's  country  as 
far  as  you  can,  inflicting  all  the  damage  you  can 
against  their  war  resources."  Banks  was  to  seize 
Mobile;  but  Banks  was  busy  on  expeditions  in 
Arkansas  and  Louisiana  inspired  from  Washington, 
and  missed  his  opportunity.  Grant's  first  idea  for 


THE   CLINCH   WITH  LEE  161 

Sherman  was  to  slice  Georgia  from  Atlanta  after 
whipping  Johnston's  army,  and  join  Banks  at 
Mobile,  but  this  was  subsequently  changed  by  force 
of  circumstance  and  Sherman's  genius,  and  Sherman 
mowed  his  swath  through  to  Savannah  and  then 
north  through  both  Carolinas,  whence  he  could  press 
Lee  upwards  from  the  south  while  Grant  pressed 
down  upon  the  other  side.  "I  do  not  propose,"  Grant 
wrote  him,  "to  lay  down  for  you  a  plan  of  campaign, 
but  simply  lay  down  the  work  it  is  desirable  to  have 
done  and  leave  you  free  to  execute  it  in  your  own 
way." 

For  the  first  time  since  Sumter  the  keys  controlling 
all  the  Northern  armies  were  in  a  single  hand,  and 
when  everything  was  ready  for  the  word,  Grant 
touched  them  all  at  once.  From  Culpeper,  where  he 
had  pitched  his  tent,  the  signal  flashed  for  every 
general  to  move  on  the  4th  of  May;  Meade  against 
Lee,  Sherman  against  Johnston,  Butler  toward 
Richmond,  Sigel  along  the  Shenandoah.  From  that 
time  till  the  end,  Grant  kept  his  finger  on  the  pulse  of 
all  his  armies.  While  he  was  hammering  away  at  Lee 
and  Richmond,  he  was  sending  daily  orders  also  to 
every  captain  under  his  command.  No  other  general 
since  war  was  known  had,  while  himself  in  action  on 
the  field,  handled  the  maneuvers  of  so  many  armies 
scattered  over  so  broad  a  territory  and  centered 


162  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

toward  a  common  aim.  Lee  was  responsible  only  for 
his  own  command.  Davis  in  Richmond,  a  West 
Point  graduate  who  had  seen  service  in  the  war 
with  Mexico,  disposed  the  other  Southern  armies 
in  the  field. 

Now  came  a  cruel  test  of  fiber,  such  as  few  other 
men  were  ever  called  upon  to  face.  With  seasoned 
armies  at  his  call,  ample  in  size  and  skillfully  dis 
posed,  Grant  had  prepared  for  every  physical  con 
tingency  —  supplies,  equipment,  all  the  necessities 
for  active  service,  a  commonplace  of  war  in  which  he 
was  himself  adept  and  for  which  he  now  had  at  his 
side  his  own  superior  in  Quartermaster-General 
Rufus  Ingalls;  he  had  unusual  knowledge  of  the  field 
of  operations  gained  from  a  study  of  the  late  cam 
paigns,  together  with  his  Indian  instinct  for  topog 
raphy,  a  sixth  sense  of  his  which  some  called  genius ; 
for  all  agree  that  at  a  glance  he  used  to  master  a 
strange  map  or  catch  the  guiding  military  features  of 
a  chartless  and  bewildering  country.  But  with  all  his 
foresight  he  had  not  quite  foreseen  the  quality  of  Lee. 
It  was  Lee's  vigilance  which  upset  his  first  attempt  to 
hammer  down  the  Southern  forces  by  assault. 

Moving  his  army  quickly  across  the  Rapidan  on 
the  morning  of  the  4th  of  May,  Grant  had  thought  to 
clear  the  tragic  tangle  of  the  Wilderness  with  its  sad 
memories  of  Chancellors ville,  before  he  fell  upon  the 


THE   CLINCH   WITH  LEE  163 

enemy,  but  Lee,  who  had  once  fought  with  Hooker  on 
that  very  ground  successfully  against  great  odds, 
took  the  chance  of  meeting  Grant's  superior  forces  on 
a  field  where  he  had  already  demonstrated  that 
victory  did  not  necessarily  attend  the  heaviest 
battalions. 

The  two  days'  battle  of  the  Wilderness  with  its 
ghastly  toll  which  Lee  precipitated  on  the  5th  of  May 
brought  home  to  Grant  the  horror  of  the  path  in 
which  his  feet  were  set.  There  were  hours  in  which 
defeat  was  hovering  close;  disaster  had  never  pressed 
him  quite  so  hard;  and  with  it  comes  a  human  touch 
which  we  would  not  forego. 

Rawlins  and  Bowers  both  say  that  when  the  first 
news  reached  him  from  the  right  indicating  complete 
repulse  and  officer  after  officer  rode  up  with  new 
details,  Grant,  realizing  that  he  faced  the  crisis  of  his 
life,  still  gave  his  orders  calmly  and  coherently  with 
out  a  sign  of  undue  tension;  but  when  all  proper 
measures  had  been  taken  and  there  was  nothing  else 
to  do  but  wait,  he  "went  into  his  tent  and  throwing 
himself  face  downward  on  his  cot  gave  way  to  the 
greatest  emotion,"  without  uttering  a  word.  He  was 
stirred  to  the  very  depths  of  his  soul.  Not  till  it  was 
plain  that  the  enemy  was  not  pressing  his  advantage 
did  he  entirely  recover  his  composure. 1 
1  Under  the  Old  Flag,  vol.  i,  p.  390. 


164  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Now  we  come  to  a  revealing  and  dramatic  episode 
in  Grant's  career.  Lee  with  his  hard-fought  forces 
for  the  third  time  lay  near  the  Rapidan  facing  a  hos 
tile  army  on  its  Southern  side.  He  had  twice  seen  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac,  once  under  Pope,  once  under 
Hooker,  pushed  back  across  the  stream,  when  they 
had  thought  to  march  toward  Richmond,  but  now  he 
saw  an  enemy  which  had  failed  to  break  his  lines 
crouched  for  another  spring.  Grant  in  the  opening 
encounter  of  his  Virginia  campaign,  disastrous  though 
it  may  have  seemed,  had  forced  his  army  forward 
and  had  held  his  advance.  His  loss  was  nearly  18,000 
men,  but  Lee,  considering  his  inferior  strength,  had 
suffered  more.  The  next  night  Grant  was  headed 
south  toward  Richmond.  It  is  told  that,  as  he  rode  in 
silence  in  the  dusk  along  his  shattered  ranks,  his  worn 
and  wounded  soldiers  saw  which  way  his  face  was 
turned  and  rose  up  from  the  ground  with  cheers.  His 
mute  assurance  of  immediate  advance,  after  their 
long  acquaintance  with  procrastination  and  retreat, 
inspired  them  with  a  trust  in  their  new  chief  which 
could  not  afterwards  be  shaken.  As  for  Grant  it  was 
a  disclosure  of  his  soul.  This  reticent,  shy,  tender 
hearted  citizen,  who  shrank  from  giving  others  pain 
and  sickened  at  the  sight  of  blood,  had  without  falter 
ing  kept  his  feet  upon  the  road  which  led  through 
slaughter.  He  felt  that  in  no  other  way  could  the 


THE   CLINCH   WITH   LEE  165 

Confederacy  be  quickly  overthrown;  it  was  the  way 
of  mercy  in  the  end. 

"I  shall  take  no  backward  steps,"  Grant  wrote  to 
Halleck.  For  thirty  days  he  hammered  at  the  enemy, 
rained  heavy  blows  upon  Lee's  head;  hurled  his  men 
frequently  against  Lee's  weakening  lines,  engaged  in 
daily  skirmishes,  defied  the  rules  and  precedents  of 
war  by  frontal  charges  on  the  enemy  intrenched, 
costing  both  armies  dearly  in  the  toll  of  wounds  and 
death.  There  had  been  nothing  like  it  in  the  world 
before.  Lee  was  forced  backwards  step  by  step  on 
Richmond,  returning  blow  for  blow,  the  two  contend 
ing  armies  leaving  a  trail  of  carnage  from  the  Wilder 
ness  through  Spotsylvania  Court-House,  with  its  five 
days'  fighting  and  its  "bloody  angle"  at  the  salient, 
the  crossing  of  the  North  Anna  River  to  Cold  Harbor, 
where,  with  the  spires  of  Richmond  almost  in  sight, 
the  final  stand  was  made,  and  where  Grant  was  re 
pulsed  with  heavy  loss  after  a  frontal  charge  which 
he  admitted  later  that  he  ought  never  to  have 
ordered,  but  which  blazes  like  a  beacon  disclosing  the 
unflinching  courage  of  the  Northern  volunteer,  just 
as  Pickett's  hopeless  charge  ordered  by  Lee  at 
Gettysburg  still  enshrines  Southern  gallantry.  Porter 
has  told  how,  on  the  night  before  the  charge,  while 
walking  among  the  troops  he  saw  the  soldiers  pinning 
slips  upon  their  blouses,  on  which  each  had  written 


166  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

his  name  and  home  so  that  his  body  the  next  night 
might  not  lie  unidentified. 

"I  propose  to  fight  it  out  on  this  line  if  it  takes  all 
summer,"  Grant  had  written  Halleck  from  Spot- 
sylvania,  but  at  Cold  Harbor  his  gallant  army  had 
their  fill.  After  the  Wilderness,  Lee  had  not  once 
accepted  battle  in  the  open,  but  had  sought  in 
trenched  positions  to  withstand  attack.  It  was  a 
new  and  strange  experience  for  him.  This  master 
in  the  artistry  of  war  now  found  his  match  in  one 
less  skilled  in  tactics  but  stronger  in  offense  and  in 
tenacity.  No  matter  how  he  played  his  tempered 
sword,  no  matter  how  he  turned  and  stepped  with 
faultless  strategy,  there  stood  Grant  facing  him  like 
a  decree  of  Fate. 

At  last  both  Lee  and  Grant  viewing  their  haggard 
armies  were  content  to  change  the  character  of  the 
campaign.  After  Cold  Harbor  they  never  fought  each 
other  face  to  face.  Grant  had  not  been  able,  as  he  had 
hoped,  to  crush  Lee  north  of  Richmond,  but  that 
was  only  one  link  of  his  plan.  The  second  was  to 
throw  his  army  to  the  south  side  of  the  James,  seize 
Petersburg,  which  controlled  the  approach  to  the 
Confederate  Capital  twenty  miles  below,  besiege  Lee 
in  Richmond  or  follow  him  south  if  he  should  retreat. 
Therefore,  on  the  5th  of  June,  while  the  dead  and 
wounded  at  Cold  Harbor  still  lay  on  the  ground,  he 


From  the  collection  of  Frederick  H 
GRANT  AT  COLD   HARBOR,   VIRGINIA,   JUNE   14,    1864 
Sitting  at  left  of  picture  is  Col.  John  A.  Rawlins.  Chief  of  Staff ;  standing 
hind  Grant  is  Col.  Th^hdore  S.  Bowers;  sitting  at  Grant's  left  (head  showing  n 
tree)  is  Col.  William  L.  Duff;  sitting  at  right  of  picture  is  Gen.  John  G.  Barnai 


THE   CLINCH  WITH   LEE  167 

wrote  Halleck  that  he  should  throw  his  army  across 
the  James  as  soon  as  possible,  cut  off  all  sources  of 
supply,  and  press  the  enemy  from  the  other  side. 
Swiftly  and  silently  he  marched  around  Lee's  flank 
for  fifty  miles,  to  the  southeast,  eluding  him  com 
pletely,  and  on  the  15th  of  June,  while  Lee  was 
guessing  where  the  enemy  might  be,  Grant  wired  to 
Washington  that  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  would 
cross  the  James  on  pontoon  bridges  the  next  day, 
and  that  he  would  have  Petersburg  secured  if  possi 
ble  before  Lee  got  there  in  much  force.  Lincoln  wired 
back:  "I  begin  to  see  it;  you  will  succeed.  God  bless 
you  all." 


CHAPTER  XX 

FROM  COLD  HARBOR  TO  PETERSBURG 

FROM  the  Wilderness  to  Cold  Harbor,  Grant  had 
hammered  Lee  for  seventy  miles  and  had  lost  over 
40,000  men,  of  whom  10,000  had  been  killed.  In  each 
engagement  his  losses  had  been  fairly  matched  by 
Lee's,  except  at  Cold  Harbor;  and  the  net  benefit  had 
been  with  Grant.  The  Army  of  the  Potomac  had  been 
sadly  shattered,  but  Lee's  army  had  been  shattered 
too,  and  Lee  had  fewer  men  to  spare.  Yet  it  had  cost 
Grant  some  repute  in  Washington.  While  Spotsyl- 
vania  was  in  fight,  Lincoln  told  a  crowd  of  serena- 
ders,  "I  know  that  General  Grant  has  not  been 
jostled  in  his  purposes,  that  he  has  made  all  his 
points,  and  to-day  he  is  on  the  line  as  he  purposed 
when  he  moved  his  armies."  "He  has  the  grip  of  a 
bull-dog,"  he  told  Frank  Carpenter  the  painter; 
"when  he  once  gets  his  teeth  in  nothing  can  shake 
him  off";  and  two  weeks  later  he  endorsed  Grant's 
declaration  that  "everything  looks  exceedingly  fa 
vorable  for  us."  It  was  after  Cold  Harbor  that  he 
wrote:  "I  begin  to  see  it;  you  will  succeed."  But 
others  had  less  confidence  than  Lincoln.  "All  un- 


FROM  COLD  HARBOR  TO  PETERSBURG     169 

der  God  depends  on  Grant,"  wrote  Chase.  "So  far 
he  has  achieved  very  little  and  that  little  has  cost  be 
yond  computation."  Grimes,  of  Iowa,  wrote:  "He  has 
lost  a  vast  number  of  men  and  is  compelled  to  aban 
don  his  attempt  to  capture  Richmond  on  the  north 
side,  and  cross  the  James  River.  The  question  is  asked 
significantly,  why  did  he  not  take  his  army  south 
of  the  James  River  at  once  and  thus  save  seventy- 
five  thousand  men?" 

Grimes  thad  not  fully  fathomed  the  significance 
of  Grant's  campaign;  and  those  who  criticized  him, 
because  McClellan  had  maneuvered  nearer  Rich 
mond  without  much  fighting  and  without  much  loss, 
failed  to  remember  that  McClellan's  aim  was  to 
invest  the  rebel  Capital,  while  Grant  primarily  was 
after  Lee,  not  Richmond;  that  McClellan  had  aban 
doned  all  he  gained,  while  Grant  held  his  advance, 
and  that  McClellan,  having  neared  his  goal  with  little 
damage  to  the  enemy,  fell  back,  while  Grant,  con 
testing  every  hard-fought  step,  had  chopped  deep 
into  Lee's  defense.  If  Grant  had  gone  toward  Rich 
mond  first  by  sailing  up  the  James,  he  would  have 
found  Lee  fixed  in  the  Confederate  Capital  in  the 
best  possible  position  to  withstand  a  siege  against 
far  greater  numbers,  while  rebel  troops  would  have 
been  free  to  roam  the  State  and  threaten  Washington. 
There  would  have  been  many  months  of  siege  and 


170  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

fighting.  The  easier-seeming  way  would  have  been 
harder  in  the  end. 1 

Had  it  not  been  for  blunders  by  the  Army  of  the 
James,  Grant,  when  he  crossed  the  river,  would  have 
found  Butler's  troops  in  Petersburg  to  welcome  him, 
thus  sparing  him  ten  months  of  siege,  and  Lee  with 
Richmond  might  have  fallen  speedily,  for  Petersburg, 
twenty  miles  to  the  southeast,  a  railroad  center  on  the 
Appomattox,  was  the  real  key  to  Richmond.  When 
in  the  first  week  of  May,  Butler  had  been  sent  up  the 
James,  the  plan  was  that  he  should  take  Petersburg 
and  batter  at  the  gates  of  the  Confederate  Capital, 
while  Grant  kept  Lee  engaged,  or  else  by  threatening 
it  divert  Lee  from  Grant's  front;  but  Butler,  ignoring 

1  I  remember  asking  the  General  why  he  had  not  invested 
Richmond,  as  he  had  invested  Vicksburg  and  starved  out  Lee. 
"Such  a  movement,"  said  the  General,  "would  have  involved 
moving  my  army  from  the  Rapidan  to  Lynchburg.  I  considered 
the  plan  with  great  care  before  I  made  the  Wilderness  move.  I 
thought  of  massing  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  in  movable  columns, 
giving  the  men  twelve  days'  rations,  and  throwing  myself  be 
tween  Lee  and  his  communications.  If  I  had  made  this  movement 
successfully  —  if  I  had  been  as  fortunate  as  I  was  when  I  threw  my 
army  between  Pemberton  and  Joe  Johnston  —  the  war  would 
have  been  over  a  year  sooner.  I  am  not  sure  that  it  was  not  the 
best  thing  to  have  done;  it  certainly  was  the  plan  I  should  have  pre 
ferred.  If  I  had  failed,  however,  it  would  have  been  very  serious 
for  the  country  and  I  did  not  dare  take  the  risk.  ...  If  it  had 
been  six  months  later,  when  I  had  the  army  in  hand,  and  knew 
what  a  splendid  army  it  was,  and  what  officers  and  men  were 
capable  of  doing,  and  I  could  have  had  Sherman  and  Sheridan 
to  assist  in  the  movement,  I  would  not  have  hesitated  for  a  mo 
ment."  (Young,  vol.  n,  p.  307.) 


FROM  COLD  HARBOR  TO  PETERSBURG     171 

Petersburg,  tried  to  seize  Drewry's  Bluff,  under  the 
very  eyes  of  Richmond,  and  beaten  back  with  heavy 
loss,  withdrew  into  the  curious  pocket  of  the  James 
known  as  Bermuda  Hundred,  where  he  was  "bottled 
up"  safe  from  attack,  but  worthless  as  a  part  of 
Grant's  command. 

He  could  now  have  taken  Petersburg  with  ease 
and  held  it  pending  Grant's  arrival,  for  the  place 
was  guarded  by  a  feeble  garrison;  but  he  assigned 
the  task  to  "Baldy"  Smith,  lately  transferred  to  his 
command,  who  after  an  assault  on  June  15,  carry 
ing  the  outside  works,  withdrew  without  pursuing 
his  advantage  for  reasons  never  adequately  ex 
plained,  and  when  the  next  day  he  was  ready  for 
a  second  trial,  Beauregard  had  filled  the  town  with 
rebel  troops. 

When  Grant  approached  the  town  he  found  it 
strongly  garrisoned.  The  place,  which  should  have 
welcomed  him  had  Butler's  army  done  their  part, 
repulsed  three  days'  assault;  he  lost  10,000  men.  His 
army  were  disheartened  because  they  did  not  enter  on 
the  15th  as  they  had  hoped.  After  Cold  Harbor  and 
the  crossing  of  the  James,  they  had  thought  to  have  a 
respite  from  fighting  against  odds;  but  here  they 
found  themselves  at  once  in  the  old  desperate  game. 
Lee,  having  learned  at  last  where  Grant  had  re 
appeared,  had  brought  his  army  up  to  Petersburg, 


172  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

and  on  June  18  Grant  gave  directions  that  there 
should  be  no  more  assaults. 

From  that  day  till  the  spring  of  1865,  Meade's 
army  lay  in  front  of  Petersburg  holding  the  town  in 
siege,  sending  out  expeditions,  recuperating  broken 
regiments,  hardening  raw  recruits,  many  of  them 
bounty-lured,  keeping  Lee  occupied.  Grant  set  up 
his  tent  at  City  Point,  the  junction  of  the  Appo- 
mattox  and  the  James. 

The  next  two  months  were  gloomy  in  the  North. 
They  have  been  called  the  darkest  of  the  war.  Elec 
tion  was  near  at  hand.  Lincoln  had  been  renominated 
on  June  6,  with  Andrew  Johnson  for  his  mate;  Fre 
mont  had  been  named  by  a  little  group  of  radical 
Republicans  who  thought  that  Lincoln  was  too  slow; 
it  was  known  that  McClellan  would  be  nominated 
by  the  Democrats.  It  seemed  as  if  the  Union  armies 
everywhere  were  held  in  check,  while  early  in  July 
Lee  had  sent ,  Early  flying  through  Maryland  raid 
ing  the  country  up  to  the  very  edge  of  Washington 
and  throwing  the  Capital  into  a  panic,  Grant  un 
suspicious  of  the  move  till  he  began  to  get  inquiries 
from  Stanton,  followed  by  frantic  calls  for  help. 

While  Grant  was  fighting  through  to  Petersburg, 
Sherman  in  the  West  was  forcing  Johnston  back 
upon  Atlanta,  dislodging  him  from  one  intrenched 
position  and  another,  while  he  conducted  a  retreat  as 


FROM  COLD  HARBOR  TO  PETERSBURG     173 

masterly  as  Lee's  before  Grant,  and  Davis  having 
foolishly  put  Hood  in  Johnston's  place  because  of  fail 
ure  to  arrest  the  enemy's  advance,  Sherman,  after 
pounding  Hood  and  crippling  him  in  the  last  week  of 
July,  remained  in  check  before  Atlanta  for  a  month. 

Lincoln,  at  the  request  of  Congress,  fixed  a  day  of 
humiliation  and  prayer,  but  pending  that  he  justi 
fied  his  faith  by  works  in  issuing  on  July  18  a  call  for 
500,000  volunteers,  200,000  more  than  Grant  him 
self  at  the  same  time  was  asking  for,  and  on  the  17th 
of  August,  as  if  in  response  to  Northern  clamor  that 
Grant  be  superseded  by  McClellan,  he  was  wiring 
Grant,  who  had  expressed  unwillingness  to  break  his 
hold :  "  Neither  am  I  willing.  Hold  on  with  a  bull-dog 
grip  and  chew  and  choke  as  much  as  possible." 

It  was  on  August  23  that  Lincoln  penned  and 
signed  the  memorandum  which  he  had  each  member 
of  his  Cabinet  endorse  unread  and  which  remained 
unopened  till  November  11:  — 

"This  morning,  as  for  some  days  past,  it  seems  ex 
ceedingly  probable  that  this  Administration  will  not 
be  reflected.  Then  it  will  be  my  duty  to  so  cooperate 
with  the  President-elect  as  to  save  the  Union  between 
the  election  and  the  inauguration;  as  he  will  have 
secured  his  election  on  such  ground  that  he  cannot 
possibly  save  it  afterwards." 

During  these  gloomy  days  Grant  had  his  own  an- 


174  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

noyances.  His  major-generals  were  at  loggerheads. 
Meade  was  unpopular;  had  scolded  Warren;  had 
rebuked  Wilson  because  a  Richmond  newspaper 
charged  his  men  with  stealing  negroes,  horses,  silver 
plate,  and  clothing  on  a  raid.  There  was  talk  of  super 
seding  Meade.  But  the  most  vexatious  quarrel  was 
in  the  Army  of  the  James.  Smith  was  forever  quarrel 
ing  with  Gillmore  and  Butler  fussed  with  both.  Gill- 
more  was  soon  eliminated,  but  Smith  and  Butler 
squabbled  all  their  lives.  Smith,  a  West  Point  soldier 
with  a  brilliant  record,  an  engineer  of  proved  ability, 
perhaps  too  much  addicted  to  maneuvers,  irascible, 
fault-finding,  and  opinionated,  had  made  a  fatal  slip 
at  Petersburg.  Butler,  a  blustering,  contentious 
politician  in  a  uniform,  bitterly  hostile  to  the  West 
Point  regulars,  teeming  with  ingenious  schemes,  and 
reveling  in  Gargantuan  blunders,  unbridled  in  am 
bition  and  audacity,  a  stench  in  controversy,  the 
Thersites  of  the  war,  when  in  command  of  troops  was 
a  grotesque  and  tragical  mistake.  Since  neither  Smith 
nor  Butler  had  been  broken  to  the  harness,  they 
could  not  pull  together.  One  of  them  had  to  go,  and 
Grant  chose  Butler  for  the  sacrifice.  Then  overnight, 
after  a  call  by  Butler  at  Grant's  quarters,  the  order 
was  reversed.  Butler  was  retained  and  Smith  relieved 
from  duty:  just  why  has  been  in  controversy  ever 
since. 


FROM  COLD  HARBOR  TO  PETERSBURG     175 

Smith  wrote  for  Lincoln's  eye  a  letter  charging 
that  Butler,  having  seen  Grant  in  his  cups,  had  black 
mailed  him,  and  this  interpretation  has  found  a  place 
in  history;  but  Grant  had  weathered  charges  of  that 
kind  before  without  a  whimper  when  he  had  fewer 
friends;  he  had  no  need  to  fear  them  now.  We  cannot 
credit  the  result  to  such  a  threat  by  Butler,  unless  we 
shall  assume,  as  some  have  thought,  so  slimy  is  the 
trail  of  this  old  quarrel,  that  there  could  be  no  infamy 
which  he  would  not  embrace,  and  even  then  we  can 
not  think  that  Grant,  as  happened  later,  should  be 
come  his  friend  and  write  about  him  kindly  in  his 
book;  for  Grant  was  not  mean-spirited.  Smith's 
punishment  can  be  accounted  for  on  other  grounds. 
His  temper  sentenced  him  to  exile  if  Butler  was  to 
stay;  and  besides,  he  had  whipped  Grant  over 
Meade's  shoulders  by  tactlessly  abusing  Meade  to 
Grant  for  the  disaster  at  Cold  Harbor,  for  which  he 
must  have  known  that  Grant  was  himself  to  blame. 

It  is  far  more  likely  that  Butler's  neck  was  saved  by 
Lincoln,  who,  with  his  reelection  in  the  balance,  feared 
to  let  loose  upon  the  voters  of  the  north  a  Douglas 
Democrat  with  a  war  record,  a  grievance,  and  a 
poisoned  tongue.  Later  Butler  was  ordered  to  New 
York  to  guard  against  election  riots,  and  subse 
quently,  after  his  fiasco  at  Fort  Fisher,  he  was  sent 
home  to  Lowell  "for  the  good  of  the  service,"  Grant 


176  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

writing  Stanton  on  January  4,  1865,  "In  my  ab 
sence  General  Butler  necessarily  commands,  and 
there  is  a  lack  of  confidence  felt  in  his  military  ability, 
making  him  an  unsafe  commander  for  a  large  army. 
His  administration  of  the  affairs  of  his  department 
is  also  objectionable." 


CHAPTER  XXI 

SHERIDAN,  SHERMAN,  THOMAS 

EVEN  as  Lincoln  penned  his  gloomy  memorandum  of 
August  23,  the  skies  were  clearing.  Farragut's  opera 
tions  at  Mobile,  which  had  been  going  on  for  weeks, 
were  already  crowned  with  victory,  though  the  news 
had  not  come  North.  On  September  2,  while  the 
Democrats  in  their  convention  at  Chicago  were  re 
solving  that  the  war  had  been  a  failure,  Sherman  was 
entering  Atlanta,  whence  he  had  driven  Hood  the 
day  before,  leading  into  the  rebel  stronghold  with 
hardly  any  loss  the  army  he  led  out  of  Chattanooga 
four  months  before,  thus  tearing  out  of  the  Con 
federacy  its  chief  manufacturing  center  and  depot 
of  supplies.  On  September  3,  Lincoln,  by  proclama 
tion,  summoned  the  people  of  the  North  to  offer 
thanks  to  God  for  Union  triumphs  at  Atlanta  and 
Mobile. 

Up  to  the  time  that  Grant  came  East,  the  cavalry 
had  been  held  in  some  contempt  by  the  commanders 
of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  available  for  picket 
duty  and  for  little  else.  "  Who  ever  saw  a  dead  cav 
alryman?"  was  a  Service  jest.  But  Grant  drafted 
Sheridan  to  transform  Meade's  cavalry  into  a  fight- 


178  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

ing  force,  and  Sheridan,  unknown  east  of  the  Alle- 
ghanies  except  for  the  assault  on  Missionary  Ridge, 
had  startled  Meade  by  telling  him  that  the  mounted 
men  should  be  concentrated  to  fight  the  rebel  horse 
instead  of  doing  routine  guard  and  picket  duty  for 
the  infantry.  When  Meade  asked  who  would  protect 
the  transportation  trains,  cover  the  front  of  moving 
infantry  columns,  and  secure  their  flanks  from  in 
trusion,  he  had  another  shock  from  the  pugnacious 
little  Irishman,  —  he  was  only  thirty-three,  stood  five 
feet  five,  and  weighed  one  hundred  and  fifteen  pounds, 
—  who  said  that  with  10,000  mounted  men  he  could 
make  it  so  lively  for  the  rebel  cavalry  that  the  flanks 
and  rear  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  would  require 
little  or  no  defense,  and  that  moving  columns  of  in 
fantry  should  take  care  of  themselves.  He  hoped  to 
defeat  the  enemy  in  a  general  engagement  and  move 
where  he  pleased,  breaking  Lee's  communications  and 
destroying  his  resources. 

Meade  later  had  a  peppery  interview  with  Sheri 
dan,  in  which  the  young  man  told  him  he  could  whip 
J.  E.  B.  Stuart,  the  Confederate  cavalry  leader,  if 
Meade  would  only  let  him  try.  When  Meade  reported 
it  to  Grant,  Grant's  only  comment  was,  "Did  he 
say  so?  Then  let  him  go  out  and  do  it!"  Where 
upon  Sheridan  went  out,  and  on  the  llth  of  May, 
at  Yellow  Tavern,  within  six  miles  of  Richmond, 


SHERIDAN,  SHERMAN,  THOMAS          179 

whipped  Stuart's  forces  and  killed  Stuart  himself, 
inflicting  on  the  Confederate  mounted  troops  the 
worst  defeat  that  had  befallen  them.  Then  Sheridan 
made  an  independent  raid,  broke  up  the  railroads 
that  connected  Lee  with  Richmond,  and  frightened 
the  Confederate  Capital,  penetrating  its  outer  forti 
fications,  though  that  was  not  his  aim. 

Early,  returning  from  his  raid  on  Maryland,  con 
trolled  at  Winchester  the  fertile  Valley  of  the 
Shenandoah,  to  which  the  rebel  army  looked  for  food 
that  fall,  and  Grant  picked  Sheridan  to  operate 
against  him,  though  Stanton  had  objected  to  putting 
Sheridan  in  command  of  the  department  because  he 
was  too  young.  "I  see  you  played  around  the  diffi 
culty,"  Lincoln  said  to  Grant,  "by  picking  Sheridan 
to  command  the  boys  in  the  field."  "  I  want  Sheridan 
put  in  command  of  all  the  troops  in  the  field  with  in 
structions  to  put  himself  south  of  the  enemy  and 
follow  him  to  the  death,"  Grant  wired  to  Stanton. 
"Wherever  the  enemy  goes,  let  our  troops  go,  also  "; 
and  Lincoln,  seeing  the  dispatch,  wrote  back:  "This, 
I  think,  is  exactly  right  as  to  how  our  forces  should 
move;  but  please  look  over  the  dispatches  you  may 
have  received  from  here  ever  since  you  made  that 
order,  and  discover  if  you  can  that  there  is  any  idea  in 
the  head  of  any  one  here  of  *  putting  our  army  south 
of  the  enemy'  or  of  'following  him  to  the  death'  in 


180  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

any  direction.  I  repeat  to  you,  it  will  neither  be  done 
nor  attempted,  unless  you  watch  it  every  day  and 
hour  and  force  it." 

Grant  knew  Sheridan  better  than  Washington. 
He  instructed  him,  on  August  5,  that  in  pushing  up 
the  Shenandoah  Valley  it  was  desirable  that  nothing 
should  be  left  to  invite  the  enemy  to  return.  "Take 
all  provisions,  forage,  and  stock  wanted  for  the  use 
of  your  command.  Such  as  cannot  be  consumed, 
destroy."  Then  in  September,  having  put  Sheridan 
in  charge  of  a  new  division,  and  having  visited  him 
to  find  out  how  he  lay,  he  gave  the  order  to  "Go 
in,"  and  Sheridan  "went  in"  at  once  at  Winches 
ter,  flashing  Grant  that  he  had  "sent  Early 's  army 
whirling  up  the  Valley."  Just  a  month  later  came 
Cedar  Creek  and  Sheridan's  ride,  transforming  panic- 
stricken  flight  into  resplendent  victory.  The  little  cav 
alry  leader  in  one  summer  had  dashed  into  history  as 
one  of  the  great  figures  of  the  war  and  had  revolution 
ized  the  theory  of  cavalry  service  for  all  wars  to  come. 

"As  a  soldier,  as  a  commander  of  troops,  as  a  man 
capable  of  doing  all  that  is  possible  with  any  number 
of  men,"  Grant  said  years  later,  "there  is  no  man 
living  greater  than  Sheridan.  He  belongs  to  the  very 
first  rank  of  soldiers,  not  only  of  our  country,  but  of 
the  world.  I  rank  Sheridan  with  Napoleon  and 
Frederick  and  the  great  commanders  of  history.  No 


SHERIDAN,  SHERMAN,  THOMAS          181 

man  ever  had  such  a  faculty  of  finding  out  things  as 
Sheridan,  of  knowing  all  about  the  enemy.  He  was 
always  the  best  informed  man  of  his  command  as  to 
the  enemy.  Then  he  had  the  magnificent  quality  of 
swaying  men  which  I  wish  I  had  —  a  rare  quality  in 
a  general." 

Sherman  had  no  sooner  lighted  in  Atlanta  than  he 
began  to  think  of  longer  flights.  Grant  had  suggested 
slicing  Georgia  to  the  Gulf,  but  Sherman  had  a  vision 
of  marching  to  the  sea.  "If  you  can  whip  Lee,"  he 
wrote  Grant,  "and  I  can  march  to  the  Atlantic,  I 
think  Uncle  Abe  will  give  us  a  twenty  days'  leave  of 
absence  to  see  the  young  folks."  Hood  was  getting 
active;  Sherman  had  sent  Thomas  to  Nashville  to 
protect  Tennessee.  He  would  leave  Tennessee  to 
Thomas,  destroy  Atlanta,  and  move  to  Charleston 
or  Savannah.  "I  can  make  the  march  and  make 
Georgia  howl,"  he  wrote.  He  thought  Hood  would  be 
forced  to  follow  him,  but  at  any  rate,  "I  would  be  on 
the  offensive ;  instead  of  guessing  at  what  he  means  to 
do,  he  would  have  to  guess  at  my  plans."  Lincoln 
and  Stanton  were  solicitous;  "a  misstep  by  General 
Sherman  might  be  fatal  to  his  army."  But  Grant, 
though  dubious  at  first,  approved  the  plan.  Thomas 
objected,  and  Sherman  argued  with  him.  He  knew 
he  must  succeed,  for  if  he  failed,  "this  march  would 
be  adjudged  the  wild  adventure  of  a  crazy  fool."  He 


182  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

would  demonstrate  the  vulnerability  of  the  South 
and  make  its  people  feel  that  war  and  individual 
ruin  were  synonymous.  Hood  crossed  the  river 
into  Tennessee,  and  Grant  thought  Hood  should  be 
destroyed  before  the  march  began,  but  Sherman 
thought  it  was  a  scheme  to  lure  him  out  of  Georgia, 
and  Grant  said,  "Go  as  you  propose."  Sherman  had 
perfect  faith  that  Thomas  could  handle  Hood,  and 
having  sent  him  Schofield's  corps  for  an  emergency, 
destroyed  Atlanta  with  its  factories  and  supplies,  cut 
loose  November  12  from  all  communication  with  the 
North,  and  for  a  month  was  swallowed  up  in  Georgia 
with  60,000  men. 

Hood,  forced  to  choose  between  following  Sherman 
or  invading  Tennessee,  began  to  move  toward  Nash 
ville  with  over  40,000  men.  At  Franklin,  on  his  way 
toward  Nashville,  he  found  Schofield  with  his  corps 
of  30,000;  made  a  desperate  assault,  and  was  re 
pulsed  with  frightful  loss.  He  followed  Schofield  on 
to  Nashville  and  sat  down  before  the  city,  his  army 
now  reduced  to  26,000,  while  Thomas  held  the  town 
with  nearly  twice  Hood's  force.  Thomas  had  told 
Sherman  to  have  no  fear  about  Hood.  "If  he  does 
not  follow  you  I  will  then  thoroughly  organize  my 
troops,  and  I  believe  I  shall  have  men  enough  to  ruin 
him  unless  he  gets  out  of  the  way  very  rapidly."  He 
now  took  time  to  organize,  waiting  for  Wilson  and  his 


SHERIDAN,  SHERMAN,  THOMAS          183 

cavalry  to  get  equipments;  and  thus  put  Grant  and 
Lincoln  to  a  hard  test  of  patience.  With  his  numerical 
supremacy  they  could  not  understand  why  he  de 
layed  attacking  Hood.  "This  looks  like  McClellan 
and  Rosecrans  strategy,  to  do  nothing  and  let  the 
rebels  raid  the  country,"  wired  Stan  ton  to  Grant. 
"The  President  wishes  you  to  consider  the  matter." 
Grant  had  never  valued  Thomas  at  his  real  worth, 
and  he  knew  that  in  Hood's  place  he  would  himself 
set  out  at  once  on  an  invasion  of  the  North,  eluding 
Thomas  and  crossing  the  Ohio.  Were  Hood  to  do 
this,  it  would  be  a  heavy  blow.  All  would  be  criti 
cized  for  letting  Sherman  disappear;  it  might  be 
necessary  to  divert  troops  from  Virginia,  which  per 
haps  would  mean  a  loss  of  months  in  getting  Lee. 
And  Grant  was  later  justified  in  his  belief,  when 
Hood  himself  wrote  that  he  then  had  dreams  of 
conquest,  defeating  Thomas,  seizing  Nashville  for  a 
base,  raiding  Kentucky,  threatening  Cincinnati,  and 
marching  a  victorious  army  through  the  gaps  of  the 
Cumberland  Mountains  to  join  Lee,  whip  Grant  and 
Sherman  in  succession,  and  sweep  down  on  Wash 
ington  with  the  combined  armed  forces  of  the  Con 
federacy.1  Fate  had  now  delivered  Hood  into  the 
hands  of  Thomas  and  Thomas  seemed  to  toy  with 
Fate.  Grant  sent  dispatches  on  December  2  urging 
1  Battles  and  Leaders  of  the  Civil  War,  vol.  iv,  p.  427. 


184  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

him  to  take  the  offensive.  Thomas  replied  that  in 
two  or  three  days  he  would  probably  be  ready.  Four 
days  passed  and  Grant  dispatched  a  peremptory 
order:  "Attack  Hood  at  once  and  wait  no  longer  for 
a  remount  of  your  cavalry.  There  is  great  danger  of 
delay  resulting  in  a  campaign  back  to  the  Ohio 
River."  Thomas  answered  that  he  would  obey, 
though  "  I  believe  it  will  be  hazardous  with  the  small 
force  now  at  my  service." 

Nothing  happened.  Then  Grant  lost  his  patience; 
for  once  seemingly  cast  aside  his  usual  restraint  and 
poise.  "If  Thomas  has  not  struck  yet,"  he  wired  to 
Halleck  on  December  8,  "he  ought  to  be  ordered  to 
hand  over  his  command  to  Schofield.  There  is  no 
better  man  to  repel  an  attack  than  Thomas;  but  I 
fear  he  is  too  cautious  to  ever  take  the  initiative." 
The  next  day  he  directed  Halleck  to  relieve  Thomas 
and  put  Schofield  in  command.  Thomas,  hiding  his 
grief,  replied  with  dignity:  "I  regret  that  General 
Grant  should  feel  dissatisfaction  at  my  delay  in  at 
tacking  the  enemy.  I  feel  conscious  that  I  have  done 
everything  in  my  power  to  prepare  and  that  the 
troops  could  not  have  been  gotten  ready  before  this, 
and  that  if  he  should  order  me  to  be  relieved  I  shall 
submit  without  a  murmur.  A  terrible  storm  of  freez 
ing  rain  has  come  on  since  daylight  which  will  render 
an  attack  impossible  until  it  breaks."  Grant  sus- 


SHERIDAN,  SHERMAN,  THOMAS          185 

pended  the  order,  but  after  two  days'  further 
waiting,  with  eager  interchange  of  telegrams,  he 
ordered  Logan  to  Nashville  to  replace  Thomas  in 
command  of  the  Army  of  the  Cumberland.  In  his 
anxiety  he  started  West  himself,  but  on  his  way 
at  Washington,  on  December  15,  got  word  that 
Thomas  had  attacked,  and  then  that  Hood  was 
routed  with  Thomas  in  pursuit.  The  battle  of  Nash 
ville,  on  December  15  and  16,  was  the  most  complete 
victory  won  by  the  Union  forces  during  the  rebellion, 
a  perfect  battle  in  the  eyes  of  experts  in  the  science  of 
war.  Hood's  army  was  so  badly  beaten  that  when 
after  the  pursuit  he  left  its  wreckage  on  the  south 
side  of  the  Tennessee,  it  hardly  numbered  15,000 
men,  and  was  soon  disintegrated  save  for  a  few  who 
turned  up  afterwards  with  Johnston's  little  force  in 
North  Carolina.  Grant  did  not  quarrel  with  success. 
He  asked  that  Thomas  be  made  a  Major-General 
in  the  regular  army,  overwhelmed  him  with  con 
gratulations,  wrote  in  his  report  that  the  defeat  of 
Hood  was  so  complete  that  it  would  be  accepted 
as  a  vindication  of  the  successful  general's  judgment. 
On  the  10th  of  December,  thirty  days  after  he  cut 
loose  from  his  communications  at  Atlanta,  Sherman 
could  see  Savannah.  His  march  of  three  hundred 
and  sixty  miles  through  hostile  territory  had  been  a 
holiday,  and  on  the  21st  he  occupied  the  town  and 


186  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

offered  it  to  Lincoln  as  a  Christmas  present  for  the 
North.  Half  of  the  task  Grant  set  himself  when  he 
came  East  was  now  accomplished.  Organized  rebel 
lion  west  of  the  Alleghanies  had  been  crushed.  The 
whole  Southwest  was  open  to  the  Union  troops  when 
ever  they  saw  fit  to  occupy  it. 

Sherman  for  the  moment  far  outdazzled  Grant  in 
popular  esteem.  The  fine  audacity  of  his  accom 
plishment  had  caught  the  fancy  of  the  world.  Lincoln 
congratulated  him:  "The  undertaking  being  a  success 
the  honor  is  all  yours;  for  I  believe  none  of  us  went 
further  than  to  acquiesce."  Some  would  have  made 
him  a  Lieutenant-General  and  put  him  over  Grant, 
who  to  appearances  had  loafed  at  City  Point,  while 
his  subordinates  were  winning  victories.  "I  would 
rather  have  you  in  command  than  anybody  else," 
Sherman  wrote  Grant,  "for  you  are  fair,  honest,  and 
have  at  heart  the  same  purpose  that  should  actuate 
all.  I  should  emphatically  decline  any  commission 
calculated  to  bring  us  into  rivalry";  and  Grant 
replied:  "No  one  would  be  more  pleased  at  your 
advancement  than  I,  and  if  you  should  be  placed  in 
my  position  and  I  put  subordinate,  it  would  not 
change  our  relations  in  the  least.  I  would  make  the 
same  exertions  to  support  you  that  you  have  ever 
done  to  support  me,  and  I  would  do  all  in  my  power 
to  make  our  cause  win." 


CHAPTER  XXII 
PEACE 

GRANT,  for  the  moment  partly  in  eclipse,  bided  his 
time.  Events  were  shaping  the  success  of  his  grand 
strategy,  which  he  now  knew  the  end  would  jus 
tify.  His  lines  were  tightening  on  the  Confederacy. 
Sherman  was  on  his  way  north  from  Savannah,  cut 
ting  a  path  of  devastation  across  the  Carolinas; 
marching  four  hundred  miles  through  winter  sleet 
and  icy  floods,  quagmires  and  swamps  and  rutty 
roads,  a  bitter  contrast  to  the  Georgia  frolic.  Fort 
Fisher,  after  many  trials,  was  seized  at  last  by  Terry 
brilliantly  in  early  January,  and  Wilmington,  which 
it  protected,  the  sole  remaining  port  of  the  Confed 
eracy,  fell  into  Union  hands  as  had  already  happened 
with  every  other  rebel  stronghold  south  or  west  of 
Richmond.  Lee's  army  could  no  longer  live  upon  the 
crops  of  the  Southwest  or  tap  its  former  granary  in 
the  Valley  of  the  Shenandoah.  The  time  was  near  at 
hand  when  the  compressed  Confederacy,  upon  which 
Grant  was  closing  in,  must  either  choke  or  starve 
unless  Lee's  ragged  and  emaciated  troops  slipped 
through  the  Union  lines  to  the  Southwest.  No  re 
cruits  were  coming,  and  there  could  be  no  hope  for  a 


188  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

successful  fight  against  the  Union  army,  which  now, 
almost  encircling  Petersburg  and  Richmond  after 
months  of  siege,  was  hardening  the  latest  levies  into 
veterans.  While  Lee  had  lost  his  sources  of  supply, 
Grant  had  at  call  the  teeming  farms  and  factories  of 
the  North.  Davis  had  reached  the  limit  of  his  credit, 
while  Lincoln  still  had  full  financial  reservoirs  to 
drain. 

Yet  Davis  could  not  bring  himself  to  think  his 
cause  was  lost;  he  was  for  goading  his  exhausted 
armies  to  fight  on,  and  if  compelled  to  flee,  he  would 
transfer  the  Richmond  archives  to  a  roving  capital, 
and  keep  rebellion  bristling  in  the  Alleghany  wilds. 
His  patriotic  selfishness  would  not  have  stopped  at 
any  sacrifice  by  his  devoted  men. 

City  Point,  with  Grant's  log-cabin  headquarters, 
was  a  secondary  Union  Capital.  Lincoln  came  there 
with  Seward  and  other  members  of  the  Cabinet; 
members  of  Congress  drifted  in  to  look  things  over; 
there  was  an  unbroken  line  of  Northern  visitors.  At 
the  end  of  January  the  "Peace  Commission," 
Stephens,  Campbell,  and  Hunter,  came  from  Rich 
mond  on  their  futile  errand,  and  Grant,  who  was  a 
soldier  not  vested  with  authority  in  such  affairs, 
asked  Lincoln  to  come  down  with  Seward  to  hear 
their  tale. 

Stephens,  who  then  for  the  first  time  saw  Grant, 


PEACE  189 

has  said  that  he  was  never  more  surprised  in  any  man. 
"He  was  plainly  attired,  sitting  in  a  log  cabin  busily 
writing  on  a  small  table  by  a  kerosene  lamp.  There 
was  nothing  in  his  appearance  or  surroundings  which 
indicated  his  official  rank.  There  were  neither  guards 
nor  aides  about  him.  Upon  Colonel  Babcock  rapping 
at  his  door  the  response,  'Come  in,'  was  given  by  him 
self";  and  he  soliloquizes:  "In  manners  he  is  simple, 
natural,  and  unaffected;  in  utterance  frank  and  ex 
plicit;  in  thought,  perception  and  action,  quick;  in 
purpose  fixed,  decided,  and  resolute."  l 

The  commissioners  met  Lincoln  and  Seward  on 
Lincoln's  boat  in  Hampton  Roads.  The  peace  they 
had  in  mind  did  not  contemplate  the  dissolution  of 
the  Confederacy,  which  was  of  course  the  one  condi 
tion  Lincoln  could  consider;  but  they  learned  from 
him  that  the  Thirteenth  Amendment  abolishing 
slavery  had  just  been  passed  by  Congress,  that  the 
restoration  of  the  Union  was  the  first  requirement  in 
any  peace,  and  that  the  way  for  this  to  be  assured  by 
them  was  "by  disbanding  their  armies,  and  permit 
ting  the  National  authorities  to  resume  their  func 
tions." 

The  conference  had  its  value  in  revealing  Lincoln's 
mind.  "Stephens,"  he  said,  "if  I  were  in  Georgia 
and  entertained  the  sentiments  I  do,  ...  I  would  go 

1  Recollections  of  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  pp.  79,  80;  401-02. 


190  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

home  and  get  the  Governor  of  the  State  to  call  the 
Legislature  together  and  get  them  to  recall  all  the 
state  troops  from  the  war;  elect  senators  and  mem 
bers  to  Congress,  and  ratify  the  constitutional  amend 
ment  prospectively  so  as  to  take  effect  —  say  in  five 
years.  Such  a  ratification  would  be  valid  in  my  opin 
ion.  .  .  .  Slavery  is  doomed.  It  cannot  last  long  in  any 
event,  and  the  best  course,  it  seems  to  me,  for  you 
public  men  to  pursue  would  be  to  adopt  such  a  policy 
as  will  avoid  as  far  as  possible  the  evils  of  immediate 
emancipation."  He  said  he  should  be  in  favor  indi 
vidually  of  the  Government  paying  a  fair  indemnity 
to  the  owners.  He  knew  some  who  were  in  favor  of  an 
appropriation  as  high  as  four  hundred  million  dollars 
for  this  purpose.  This  was  on  February  3,  and  two 
days  later,  at  Washington,  Lincoln  laid  before  his 
Cabinet  a  message  which  he  proposed  to  send  to 
Congress,  recommending  a  joint  resolution  empower 
ing  the  President  to  pay  to  sixteen  Southern  and 
border  States  four  hundred  million  dollars  in  six  per 
cent  government  bonds  as  compensation  for  their 
slaves,  the  distribution  to  be  dependent  "on  the 
ceasing  of  all  resistance  to  the  National  authority 
by  the  first  of  April  next."  The  members  of  the  Cabi 
net  were  all  opposed,  and  Lincoln  seemed  surprised. 
"How  long  will  the  war  last?"  he  asked;  and  when 
no  one  answered,  he  said:  "A  hundred  days.  We  are 


PEACE  191 

spending  now  in  carrying  on  the  war  three  millions 
a  day  which  will  amount  to  all  this  money  besides  all 
the  lives";  and  with  a  deep  sigh  he  added,  "but  you 
are  all  opposed  to  me  and  I  will  not  send  the  mes 
sage." 

In  the  last  week  of  March,  Sherman  reached  Golds- 
boro,  in  North  Carolina,  and  found  Schofield  waiting 
for  him  there,  while  Johnston  with  a  remnant  of  his 
old  army  hung  about  Raleigh,  fifty  miles  away. 

Grant,  waiting  for  the  spring  campaign  which  he 
had  planned  to  end  the  business,  indulged  his  troops 
in  desultory  fighting  mostly  by  Sheridan  and  Wilson, 
who  with  their  mounted  horse  were  cutting  Lee's 
communications,  raiding  his  outposts,  smiting  stray 
regiments  now  and  then,  ruffling  the  rebel  Capital's 
defense.  At  last  the  time  approached  for  operations 
all  along  the  line,  and  Lee,  foreseeing  this,  thought  to 
anticipate  it  by  breaking  through  the  Union  lines  at 
Petersburg,  and  by  forced  marches,  eluding  Grant, 
join  Johnston  in  the  Carolinas  for  a  final  stand.  It 
was  a  desperate  chance,  dramatically  taken,  result 
ing  in  repulse. 

On  the  29th  of  March,  Grant  bade  farewell  to  City 
Point,  Lincoln's  "God  bless  you"  lingering  in  his 
ears.  It  is  written  that  as  his  wife  stood  in  his  cabin 
door  saying  good-bye,  he  held  her  tight  and  kissed 
her  many  times  with  tenderness  unusual,  even  for 


192  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

him.  From  that  time  to  the  end  he  mingled  with  his 
army  at  the  front,  taking  the  same  exposure  as  his 
men. 

It  fell  to  Sheridan  to  strike  the  last  swift  blow, 
when  on  the  1st  of  April  at  Five  Forks  his  forces 
stormed  the  intrenched  enemy,  slashing  their  way 
through  raking  fire,  charging  with  drawn  sabers  and 
fixed  bayonets,  the  little  General  himself  leading  his 
men,  waving  his  battle-flag,  praying,  swearing,  flash 
ing  from  one  point  to  another,  till  Merritt  in  a  final 
dash  carried  the  earthworks  with  a  wild  hurrah.  Few 
battles  like  it  ever  have  been  waged,  and  none  has 
since  been  fought  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  with 
which  we  can  compare  its  brilliant  daring  strategy. 
"It  seems  to  me,"  said  Porter,  "that  you  have  ex 
posed  yourself  to-day  in  a  manner  hardly  justifiable 
on  the  part  of  a  commander  of  such  an  important 
movement'*;  and  Sheridan  replied,  "I  have  never 
in  my  life  taken  a  command  into  battle  and  had 
the  slightest  desire  to  come  out  alive  unless  I 
won." 

As  soon  as  he  was  told  what  Sheridan  had  done, 
Grant  ordered  an  assault  on  Petersburg,  and  on  the 
morning  of  the  2d  it  was  made,  without  great  loss  to 
Lee,  who  knew,  of  course,  that  after  Five  Forks  he 
could  not  hope  to  hold  the  place.  That  night,  in 
cover  of  the  darkness,  Lee's  men  filed  out  of  Peters- 


PEACE  193 

burg,  and  shortly  after  daybreak  Grant  rode  in.  Then 
Lincoln  came  and  seized  Grant's  hand  and  thanked 
him.  "I  had  a  sort  of  sneaking  idea  all  along  that 
you  intended  to  do  something  like  this,"  Lincoln 
said;  "but  I  thought  some  time  ago  that  you  would 
so  maneuver  as  to  have  Sherman  come  up  and  be  near 
enough  to  cooperate  with  you."  And  Grant,  reveal 
ing  a  fine  tactfulness,  replied:  "I  had  a  feeling  that  it 
would  be  better  to  let  Lee's  old  antagonists  give  his 
army  the  final  blow  and  finish  up  the  job.  The  West 
ern  armies  have  been  very  successful  in  their  cam 
paigns,  and  it  is  due  to  the  Eastern  armies  to  let  them 
vanquish  their  old  enemy  single-handed." 

That  same  day  Davis  fled  from  Richmond  and 
Swell's  troops  absconded,  letting  the  Union  forces  in. 
To  Richmond  Lincoln  went  from  Petersburg;  but 
not  Grant,  who  was  too  busy  keeping  an  eye  on  Lee, 
with  Ord  and  Meade  and  Sheridan  dogging  Lee's 
trail.  Lee,  with  his  poor,  starved  army,  was  trying  to 
reach  Johnston,  and  at  last,  near  Jetersville,  Sheridan 
found  him  still  militant,  though  in  a  sorry  way.  But 
Meade,  who  had  the  old  idea  of  occupying  Richmond, 
forgetful  of  Grant's  first  instructions,  had  disposed 
his  troops  with  that  in  view,  leaving  a  space  between 
the  Union  lines  through  which  Lee  might  escape. 
Sheridan  alarmed,  and  having  no  authority  to 
change  Meade's  plan,  sent  Grant  a  secret  message 


194  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

telling  him  the  tale  and  adding,  "I  wish  you  were 
here  yourself." 

Grant  was  immediately  on  his  way  to  Sheridan  and 
learned  at  Farmsville  of  fighting  still  going  on  with 
some  of  Lee's  divisions.  Word  came  in  that  Ewell  had 
said  the  rebel  cause  was  lost,  and  on  April  7,  at 
5  P.M.,  Grant,  thinking  further  bloodshed  wicked, 
now  that  fighting  was  in  vain,  wrote  to  Lee  asking  the 
surrender  of  his  army.  There  was  need  of  diplomacy. 
Lee,  not  admitting  that  his  case  was  hopeless,  asked 
the  terms  which  would  be  offered  on  condition  of 
surrender,  and  Grant  replied  with  delicacy:  "Peace 
being  my  great  desire,  there  is  but  one  condition  I 
would  insist  upon,  namely,  that  the  men  and  officers 
surrendered  shall  be  disqualified  for  taking  up  arms 
against  the  Government  of  the  United  States  until 
properly  exchanged.  I  will  meet  you  or  will  designate 
officers  to  meet  any  officers  you  may  name  for  the 
same  purpose,  at  any  point  agreeable  to  you,  for  the 
purpose  of  arranging  definitely  the  terms  upon  which 
the  surrender  of  the  Army  of  Northern  Virginia  will 
be  received."  Lee  held  back.  He  tried  to  think  the 
time  had  not  yet  come  for  abdication  of  his  cause. 
"I  cannot,  therefore,  meet  you  with  a  view  to  sur 
render  the  Army  of  Northern  Virginia,  but  as  far 
as  your  proposal  may  affect  the  Confederate  States 
forces  under  my  command  and  tend  to  the  restora- 


PEACE  195 

tion  of  peace,  I  shall  be  pleased  to  meet  you  at  10 
A.M.  to-morrow  on  the  old  stage-road  to  Richmond, 
between  the  picket  lines  of  the  two  armies." 

Grant,  who  was  suffering  excruciating  pain,  sleep 
less,  pacing  up  and  down  his  room,  his  splitting  head 
held  in  his  hands,  was  at  first  cast  down  by  this  reply, 
but  wrote  the  next  day  in  response:  "As  I  have  no 
authority  to  treat  on  the  subject  of  peace,  the  meet 
ing  proposed  for  10  A.M.  to-day  could  lead  to  no  good. 
I  will  state,  however,  General,  that  I  am  equally  anx 
ious  for  peace  with  yourself  and  the  whole  North 
entertains  the  same  feeling.  The  terms  upon  which 
peace  can  be  had  are  well  understood.  By  the  South 
laying  down  their  arms  they  will  hasten  that  most 
desirable  event,  save  thousands  of  human  lives,  and 
hundreds  of  millions  of  property  not  yet  destroyed." 
Before  Lee  got  this  letter,  Lee  had  held  a  council  of 
his  officers,  who  were  insistent  on  a  new  assault  in 
hope  of  breaking  through  the  Union  lines,  and  Gor 
don,  leading  the  assault  by  Lee's  direction,  suffered 
a  repulse.  This  misadventure,  and  the  temper  of 
Grant's  note,  magnanimous,  yet  placing  upon  Lee 
the  sole  responsibility  for  any  further  loss  of  life, 
resulted  in  a  quick  compliance.  "I  now  request  an 
interview,  in  accordance  with  the  offer  contained  in 
your  letter  of  yesterday,"  he  wrote;  and  when  Grant 
read  the  note,  the  pain  from  which  he  had  been  suf- 


196  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

fering  disappeared.  "I  will  push  forward  to  the  front 
for  the  purpose  of  meeting  you,"  he  replied;  then 
riding  on  with  members  of  his  staff,  joined  on  the  road 
by  Sheridan  and  Ord,  he  came  at  noon  to  Appomat- 
tox  Court-House,  near  which  the  Union  and  Con 
federate  forces  lay  on  their  arms,  and  entered  the 
brick  dwelling  with  its  tawdry  furnishings  where  Lee 
and  his  great  hour  awaited  him. 

The  story  has  been  written  many  times,  but  no 
American  can  weary  of  its  telling.  Lee,  dressed  im 
maculately  in  a  uniform  of  gray  which  emphasized 
his  faultless  bearing  and  his  noble  form;  Grant,  as  he 
has  been  pictured  heretofore,  clad  in  a  private's 
blouse,  soiled  with  much  riding,  on  which  were  sewn 
the  shoulder  straps  to  let  his  soldiers  know  his  rank; 
Lee  carrying  a  handsome  sword,  but  Grant  with  none. 

"What  General  Lee's  feelings  were,  I  do  not  know," 
writes  Grant.  "They  were  entirely  concealed  from 
my  observation;  but  my  own  feelings,  which  had  been 
quite  jubilant  on  the  receipt  of  his  letter,  were  sad 
and  depressed.  I  felt  like  anything  rather  than  re 
joicing  at  the  downfall  of  a  foe  who  had  fought  so  long 
and  valiantly  and  had  suffered  so  much  for  a  cause, 
though  that  cause  was  I  believe  one  of  the  worst  for 
which  a  people  ever  fought  and  one  for  which  there 
was  the  least  excuse." 

Grant  talked  awhile  of  ordinary  things,  ignoring 


PEACE  197 

the  momentous  theme  that  brought  them  there,  and 
gently  leaving  that  for  Lee  to  introduce,  —  about  old 
army  times,  service  in  Mexico,  where  he  was  a  subal 
tern  and  Lee  Scott's  chief  of  staff,  —  till  Lee,  remind 
ing  him  that  they  had  business  in  hand,  said  he  had 
asked  the  interview  to  learn  the  terms  that  it  was 
proposed  to  give  his  army.  Grant  told  him,  and  they 
fell  again  in  talk  till  Lee  suggested  that  the  terms  be 
written  out.  Then,  turning  to  a  table,  Grant  wrote 
as  he  was  wont  to  write,  swiftly  and  clearly  without 
erasure,  not  knowing  when  he  took  his  pen  what  the 
first  word  would  be,  but  knowing  what  was  in  his 
mind  and  wishing  to  express  it  unmistakably.  "As 
I  wrote  on,"  he  says,  "the  thought  occurred  to  me 
that  the  officers  had  their  own  private  horses  and 
effects  which  were  important  to  them,  but  of  no 
value  to  us;  also  that  it  would  be  an  unnecessary 
humiliation  to  call  upon  them  to  deliver  their  side 
arms."  When  Lee  read  over  that  part  of  the  terms, 
"he  remarked  with  some  feeling,  I  thought,  that  this 
would  have  a  happy  effect  upon  his  army."  l 

1  General  R.  E.  Lee, 

Commanding  Confederate  States  Armies. 
General: 

In  accordance  with  the  substance  of  my  letter  to  you  of  the  8th 
inst.,  I  propose  to  receive  the  surrender  of  the  Army  of  Northern 
Virginia  on  the  following  terms,  to  wit: 

Rolls  of  all  the  officers  and  men  to  be  made  in  duplicate,  one 
copy  to  be  given  to  an  officer  designated  by  me,  the  other  to  be 


198  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Then  Lee  spoke  about  his  mounted  men,  most  of 
whom  owned  their  horses,  and  asked  if  he  should 
understand  that  these  should  be  retained.  This  had 
not  been  in  the  terms  as  written  out,  but  Grant  said 
that  he  hoped  and  thought  that  there  would  be  no 
further  battles  in  the  war.  "I  took  it  that  most  of 
the  men  in  the  ranks  were  small  farmers.  The  whole 
country  had  been  so  raided  by  the  two  armies  that  it 
was  doubtful  whether  they  would  be  able  to  put  in  a 
crop  to  carry  themselves  and  their  families  through 
the  next  winter  without  the  aid  of  the  horses  they 
were  then  riding."  So  he  said  that  any  man  who 
claimed  to  own  a  horse  or  a  mule  might  take  it  home. 
Lee  remarked  again  that  this  would  have  a  happy 
effect,  and  straightway  wrote  out  his  acceptance  of 
Grant's  terms.  Then  there  was  a  final  touch.  As  Lee 
was  going,  he  spoke  again  about  his  men,  told  Grant 

retained  by  such  officer  or  officers  as  you  may  designate.  The  offi 
cers  to  give  their  individual  paroles  not  to  take  up  arms  against  the 
Government  of  the  United  States  until  properly  exchanged,  and 
each  company  or  regimental  commander  sign  a  like  parole  for  the 
men  of  their  commands. 

The  arms,  artillery  and  public  property  to  be  packed  and  stocked 
and  turned  over  to  the  officer  appointed  by  me  to  receive  them. 
This  will  not  embrace  the  side  arms  of  the  officers  nor  their  private 
horses  or  baggage.  This  done,  each  officer  and  man  will  be  allowed 
to  return  to  their  homes,  not  to  be  disturbed  by  the  United  States 
authorities  so  long  as  they  observe  their  parole  and  the  laws  in 
force  where  they  may  reside. 

Very  respectfully, 

U.  S.  Grant, 

Lieutenant-General. 


PEACE  199 

that  they  were  badly  off  for  food;  that  for  some  days 
they  had  been  living  only  on  parched  corn;  he  would 
have  to  ask  for  rations;  and  Grant  told  him  to  send 
his  commissary  and  quartermaster  to  Appomattox 
Station,  where  his  men  could  get  all  the  food  they 
needed  from  the  trains  which  Sheridan  had  stopped. 

Then  Lee  went  out,  and  as  he  passed,  the  aides, 
who  had  been  waiting  on  the  steps,  arose  respect 
fully.  He  did  not  seem  to  notice  them,  but  looking 
over  the  green  valley  toward  his  surrendered  army 
he  smote  his  hands  abstractedly  until  his  orderly  led 
up  his  horse.  He  took  the  bridle.  Grant  walked  by 
and  touched  his  hat,  and  Lee,  returning  the  salute  in 
silence,  rode  back  to  his  own  lines. 

That  afternoon  Grant  telegraphed  to  Stanton  in 
three  lines  informing  him  of  Lee's  surrender.1  When 
his  men  learned  what  had  been  done,  they  began  a 
salute  in  honor  of  the  victory;  but  Grant,  hearing  the 
first  volley,  ordered  them  to  stop.  He  would  not  add 
to  the  distress  of  a  defeated  foe.  Thus  he  had  stopped 
the  cheers  at  Donelson  and  Vicksburg. 

1  HEADQUARTERS,  APPOMATTOX  COURT-HOUSE  VIRGINIA, 

April  9,  1865,  4.30  P.M. 
Hon.  E.  M.  Stanton,  Secretary  of  War, 

Washington. 

General  Lee  surrendered  the  Army  of  Northern  Virginia  this 
afternoon  on  terms  proposed  by  myself.  The  accompanying  addi 
tional  correspondence  will  show  the  conditions  fully. 

U.  S.  GRANT, 
Lieutenant-General. 


200  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

The  next  morning  he  rode  out  beyond  the  Union 
lines  toward  Lee's  headquarters,  and  Lee,  perceiving 
who  it  was,  rode  out  to  meet  him.  They  talked  again, 
this  time  about  the  need  for  peace.  Lee  hoped  that 
there  would  be  no  further  sacrifice  of  life,  but  could 
not  say;  the  South  was  a  big  country  and  time  might 
pass  before  the  war  could  be  entirely  ended;  he  could 
not  foretell.  Then  Grant  told  him  that  his  influ 
ence  was  greater  than  that  of  any  other  man  in  the 
Confederacy  and  said  that  if  he  should  now  advise 
surrendering  all  the  armies,  no  doubt  his  counsel 
would  be  followed  with  alacrity.  But  Lee  said  that 
he  could  not  do  that  without  consulting  Davis,  and 
Grant  knew  that  there  would  be  no  use  in  urging  him 
to  do  what  he  did  not  think  was  right.  So  Lee  went 
back  again  among  his  men,  and  shortly  home  to  lay 
aside  his  uniform.  Davis  was  even  then  in  flight 
toward  Texas,  hoping  to  keep  rebellion  there  alive; 
but  he  was  caught  in  Georgia  on  the  way. 

Grant  went  to  Washington  at  once.  They  would 
make  much  of  him,  but  he  would  not  be  lionized.  He 
talked  with  Lincoln,  but  declined  an  invitation  to 
Ford's  Theater,  hurrying  on  to  Burlington,  New 
Jersey,  where  his  children  were  at  school.  At  Phila 
delphia  he  heard  of  Lincoln's  murder  and  came  back 
to  be  a  tower  of  strength  in  the  grief-stricken  city. 

In  Washington,  a  few  days  later,  he  received  from 


GRANT   AS   LIEUTENANT-GENERAL 


PEACE  201 

Sherman  the  news  of  Johnston's  surrender,  and  learned 
the  impossible  terms  which  Sherman  had  innocently 
given,  terms  which  invaded  the  province  of  politics 
and  reconstruction,  and  which  inflamed  the  North 
when  Stanton  made  them  public.  Stanton's  an 
nouncement  conveying  the  information  that  Sher 
man  had  been  disciplined,  and  carrying  a  sinister 
suggestion  that  the  hero  of  the  march  through 
Georgia  was  implicated  in  a  scheme  to  let  Confeder 
ate  officials  get  away  with  plunder  from  the  Rich 
mond  banks,  for  a  time  made  Sherman  a  target  for 
the  people's  wrath.  Grant  was  sent  to  Raleigh  to 
cancel  Sherman's  terms  and  order  the  resumption 
of  hostilities.  Instead  of  superseding  Sherman  and 
humiliating  him  before  a  beaten  enemy,  he  tactfully 
allowed  him  on  his  own  initiative  to  reverse  his 
course  and  to  exact  surrender  on  the  terms  Grant 
gave  to  Lee  according  to  instructions  from  the  pow 
ers  in  Washington,  then  stole  away  from  Raleigh 
without  letting  any  one  but  Sherman  know  that  he 
was  there. 

Thus  the  war  ended,  a  gentle  spirit  pervading  the 
spent  armies  North  and  South,  due  in  chief  measure 
to  the  generosity  of  Grant,  who  shortly  after  re 
ceived  his  army's  salutations  in  the  solemn  pageant 
of  the  Grand  Review  crowned  with  the  glory  of  his 
country's  gratitude. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 
A  GENERAL  WITHOUT  HIS  ARMY 

AT  the  crest  of  his  renown  Grant  found  himself  in 
Washington  encumbered  with  high  military  rank, 
but  shorn  of  power.  The  day  he  came  from  Appo- 
mattox  he  put  himself  to  work  curtailing  the  ex 
pense  of  war  by  canceling  the  orders  for  superfluous 
munitions  and  supplies.  He  set  out  also  to  disband 
the  armies,  so  that  in  a  little  while  he,  who  yesterday 
had  headed  half  a  million  men,  commanded  a  small 
force  of  regulars,  in  numbers  hardly  more  imposing 
than  Scott  had  handled  just  before  the  war.  Con 
gress  in  1866  revived  for  him  the  grade  of  General, 
but  did  not  couple  with  it  new  battalions  or  brigades. 
There  was  not  much  for  him  to  do  except  to  trim  the 
ragged  edges  of  rebellion  by  clearing  up  the  strag 
glers  in  the  South  who  were  reluctant  about  laying 
down  their  arms.  He  was  a  stranger  to  the  Capital, 
and  had  a  limited  acquaintance  with  public  men. 

He  had  brought  with  him  several  members  of  his 
Staff;  but  there  were  hardly  half  a  dozen  men  in 
Congress  whom  he  knew  except  by  name,  and  in  the 
Cabinet,  Stanton  and  Seward  were  the  only  two 
with  whom  he  had  been  closely  brought  in  touch. 


A   GENERAL   WITHOUT   HIS   ARMY       203 

Seward,  he  distrusted  because  of  his  diplomacy  and 
indirection. 

Stanton  he  disliked  instinctively,  and  his  dislike 
was  aggravated  by  the  Sherman  episode.  Stanton,  a 
zealot,  deeply  versed  in  Bible  lore,  was  an  unamal- 
gamated  mixture  of  strangely  contradictory  traits, 
domineering,  superstitious,  cowardly,  intolerant, 
sympathetic,  devoid  of  loyalty  to  his  co-workers, 
though  passionately  loyal  to  the  Union  cause,  con 
sistent  only  in  his  fervid  love  of  country  and  of  power 
and  in  undeviating  lack  of  tact.  With  Stanton,  for 
mally,  Grant  had  to  keep  on  friendly  terms,  and  so 
with  Johnson,  who  was  really  weak  and  vacillating, 
though  outwardly  pugnacious,  and  who,  when  enter 
ing  on  his  new  and  onerous  responsibilities,  could 
think  of  nothing  more  appropriate  to  say  than  to 
extol  his  own  past  record,  concluding  with  the  words : 
"The  duties  have  been  mine,  the  consequences 
God's." 

Grant  had  now  to  deal  in  strange  surroundings 
with  politicians  whom  he  did  not  know,  coping  with 
questions  altogether  new.  The  kindly  feeling  of 
the  South,  stirred  by  his  chivalry  toward  Lee,  was 
strengthened  by  his  stand  against  the  threat  of  John 
son  to  try  Lee  for  treason  in  defiance  of  the  promise 
of  his  parole.  A  super-serviceable  judge  at  Norfolk 
had  the  grand  jury  find  indictments  against  some  of 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

A  GENERAL  WITHOUT  HIS  ARMY 

AT  the  crest  of  his  renown  Grant  found  himself  in 
Washington  encumbered  with  high  military  rank, 
but  shorn  of  power.  The  day  he  came  from  Appo- 
mattox  he  put  himself  to  work  curtailing  the  ex 
pense  of  war  by  canceling  the  orders  for  superfluous 
munitions  and  supplies.  He  set  out  also  to  disband 
the  armies,  so  that  in  a  little  while  he,  who  yesterday 
had  headed  half  a  million  men,  commanded  a  small 
force  of  regulars,  in  numbers  hardly  more  imposing 
than  Scott  had  handled  just  before  the  war.  Con 
gress  in  1866  revived  for  him  the  grade  of  General, 
but  did  not  couple  with  it  new  battalions  or  brigades. 
There  was  not  much  for  him  to  do  except  to  trim  the 
ragged  edges  of  rebellion  by  clearing  up  the  strag 
glers  in  the  South  who  were  reluctant  about  laying 
down  their  arms.  He  was  a  stranger  to  the  Capital, 
and  had  a  limited  acquaintance  with  public  men. 

He  had  brought  with  him  several  members  of  his 
staff;  but  there  were  hardly  half  a  dozen  men  in 
Congress  whom  he  knew  except  by  name,  and  in  the 
Cabinet,  Stanton  and  Seward  were  the  only  two 
with  whom  he  had  been  closely  brought  in  touch. 


A   GENERAL   WITHOUT   HIS   ARMY       203 

Seward,  he  distrusted  because  of  his  diplomacy  and 
indirection. 

Stanton  he  disliked  instinctively,  and  his  dislike 
was  aggravated  by  the  Sherman  episode.  Stanton,  a 
zealot,  deeply  versed  in  Bible  lore,  was  an  unamal- 
gamated  mixture  of  strangely  contradictory  traits, 
domineering,  superstitious,  cowardly,  intolerant, 
sympathetic,  devoid  of  loyalty  to  his  co-workers, 
though  passionately  loyal  to  the  Union  cause,  con 
sistent  only  in  his  fervid  love  of  country  and  of  power 
and  in  undeviating  lack  of  tact.  With  Stanton,  for 
mally,  Grant  had  to  keep  on  friendly  terms,  and  so 
with  Johnson,  who  was  really  weak  and  vacillating, 
though  outwardly  pugnacious,  and  who,  when  enter 
ing  on  his  new  and  onerous  responsibilities,  could 
think  of  nothing  more  appropriate  to  say  than  to 
extol  his  own  past  record,  concluding  with  the  words : 
"The  duties  have  been  mine,  the  consequences 
God's." 

Grant  had  now  to  deal  in  strange  surroundings 
with  politicians  whom  he  did  not  know,  coping  with 
questions  altogether  new.  The  kindly  feeling  of 
the  South,  stirred  by  his  chivalry  toward  Lee,  was 
strengthened  by  his  stand  against  the  threat  of  John 
son  to  try  Lee  for  treason  in  defiance  of  the  promise 
of  his  parole.  A  super-serviceable  judge  at  Norfolk 
had  the  grand  jury  find  indictments  against  some  of 


204  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

the  paroled  Confederates,  and  when  Lee  heard  that 
he,  too,  would  be  indicted,  he  wrote  to  Grant  remind 
ing  him  of  the  protection  he  understood  was  granted 
him  and  applying  for  amnesty  and  pardon.  Grant 
needed  no  reminder.  He  promptly  forwarded  to 
Johnson,  through  the  Secretary  of  War,  the  request 
for  amnesty,  earnestly  recommending  that  it  be 
granted,  and  sent  Lee's  letter  to  the  Secretary  with 
this  endorsement :  — 

"  In  my  opinion  the  officers  and  men  paroled  at 
Appomattox  Court-House  and  since,  upon  the  same 
terms  given  Lee,  cannot  be  tried  for  treason,  so  long 
as  they  observe  the  terms  of  their  parole.  This  is 
my  understanding.  Good  faith  as  well  as  true  policy 
dictates  that  we  should  observe  the  conditions  of 
that  convention.  .  .  .  The  action  of  Judge  Under 
wood  in  Norfolk  has  already  had  an  injurious  effect, 
and  I  would  ask  that  he  be  ordered  to  quash  all 
indictments  found  against  paroled  prisoners  of  war 
and  to  desist  from  the  further  prosecution  of  them." 

Grant  was  not  content  with  written  words.  He 
hurried  to  the  White  House,  where  for  once  he  found 
his  tongue  in  controversy.  "  A  general  commanding 
troops,"  he  said,  "  has  certain  responsibilities  and 
duties  and  power  which  are  supreme.  ...  I  have 
made  certain  terms  with  Lee,  the  best  and  only 
terms.  If  I  had  told  him  and  his  army  that  their 


A   GENERAL   WITHOUT   HIS   ARMY       205 

liberty  would  be  invaded,  that  they  would  be  open 
to  arrest,  trial,  and  execution  for  treason,  Lee  would 
have  never  surrendered,  and  we  should  have  lost 
many  lives  in  destroying  them.  ...  I  will  resign  the 
command  of  the  army  rather  than  execute  any  order 
directing  me  to  arrest  Lee  or  any  of  his  commanders 
so  long  as  they  obey  the  laws." 

That  was  a  contingency  which  Johnson  dared  not 
face.  He  could  not  hope  to  put  his  influence  to  the 
test  against  the  all-pervading  popularity  of  Grant. 
The  indictments  were  withdrawn,  though  Johnson 
still  denied  to  Lee  his  amnesty.1 

In  Texas  Kirby  Smith  was  slow  in  his  surrender, 
and  Grant  rushed  Sheridan  to  force  his  hand,  much 
to  the  discontent  of  Sheridan,  who  greatly  longed  to 
lead  his  troopers  in  the  Grand  Review.  But  Grant 
had  more  in  mind  than  Kirby  Smith's  chastisement. 
Grant  had  always  looked  on  Maximilian's  venture  as 

1  In  November,  1865,  Grant  gave  to  Longstreet,  who  from  West 
Point  days  had  been  his  friend,  a  letter  to  the  President  recom 
mending  Longstreet's  pardon.  Armed  with  this  letter,  Longstreet 
sought  Johnson.  "  The  President  was  nervous,  ill  at  ease,  and 
somewhat  resentful  .  .  .  and  at  length  closed  the  interview  by 
saying,  '  There  are  three  men  this  Union  will  never  forgive  —  they 
have  given  it  too  much  trouble.  They  are  Jefferson  Davis,  Robert 
E.  Lee,  and  James  Longstreet.'  General  Longstreet  said,  'Those 
who  are  forgiven  much,  love  much,  Mr.  President.'  Johnson 
answered,  '  You  have  high  authority  for  that  statement,  General, 
but  you  cannot  have  amnesty.'  "  (Lee  and  Longstreet  at  High  Tide, 
p.  106.) 


206  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

closely  intertwined  with  the  rebellion,  since  it  had 
been  encouraged  by  the  heads  of  the  Confederacy  and 
instigated  by  the  European  powers  when  Lincoln's 
hands  were  tied  and  Washington  could  not  effectively 
protest.  He  held  the  French  invasion  to  be  an  act  of 
war  on  the  United  States,  and  thought  that  we  should 
treat  it  so  whenever  we  were  free  to  strike.  He  often 
spoke  of  it  to  Lincoln  while,  at  City  Point,  and  urged 
that  when  the  war  was  over  troops  should  be  thrown 
across  the  border  to  drive  the  French  invaders  out. 

He  thought  then  that  it  would  have  a  noble  in 
fluence  at  home  if  soldiers  of  the  North  and  South, 
recently  fighting  one  another,  could  unite  in  war 
against  a  common  foe,  and  while  he  had  no  definite 
response  from  Lincoln,  he  inferred  that  Lincoln  sym 
pathized  with  him  in  this.  Grant  always  held  Na 
poleon  III  in  detestation  and  would  have  taken  keen 
delight  in  his  discomfiture.  He  looked  upon  him  as 
the  special  foe  of  the  United  States  and  liberty. 

Though  Lincoln's  hands  were  tied,  Johnson's  were 
now  free;  and  Sheridan  was  an  ideal  instrument, 
impatient  to  be  used.  In  middle  June  Grant  wrote  to 
Johnson  proposing  "  open  resistance  to  the  establish 
ment  of  Maximilian's  government  in  Mexico."  If 
such  a  government  should  be  established,  he  could 
"see  nothing  before  us  but  a  long,  expensive,  and 
bloody  war.  .  .  .  Every  act  of  the  empire  of  Maxi- 


A   GENERAL   WITHOUT   HIS   ARMY       207 

milian  has  been  hostile  to  the  United  States.  .  .  . 
What  I  would  propose  would  be  a  solemn  protest 
against  the  establishment  of  a  monarchical  govern 
ment  in  Mexico  by  the  aid  of  foreign  bayonets.  .  .  . 
How  all  this  could  be  done  without  bringing  on  an 
armed  conflict,  others  who  have  studied  such  matters 
could  tell  better  than  I." 

But  Johnson  was  not  greatly  interested.  He  had 
fish  of  his  own  to  fry  at  home  and  found  it  easy  to  let 
Mexico  alone,  especially  as  Seward,  who  was  always 
at  his  ear,  was  altogether  hostile  to  the  use  of  force, 
hoping  to  get  everything  we  needed  through  the 
means  of  diplomatic  notes. 

To  Sheridan's  disgust  his  cavalry  could  only  chafe 
on  this  side  of  the  Rio  Grande,  while  Grant  recorded 
an  experience  in  rank  without  authority  —  not  his 
last,  for  the  unlovely  days  of  Reconstruction  were 
at  hand. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

RECONSTRUCTION 

THERE  is  no  period  of  our  history  more  mortifying 
to  our  national  pride  than  that  just  following  the 
Civil  War,  no  time  when  in  the  hour  of  need  exalted 
statesmanship  was  more  nearly  in  eclipse.  We  can 
now  only  guess  what  would  have  been  the  course  of 
Reconstruction  if  Lincoln  had  not  died;  though  we 
know  broadly  what  he  had  in  view  to  heal  the  wounds 
of  war.  The  charity  which  permeates  the  scriptural 
phrases  of  the  second  inaugural  is  a  precious  heritage, 
and  is  in  keeping  with  constructive  plans  which  he 
proposed  for  the  regeneration  of  the  South,  as  well 
as  with  his  words  at  Hampton  Roads.  What  he  did 
in  Louisiana  while  the  war  was  on  gives  us  an  inkling 
of  what  he  would  have  tried  to  do  in  other  States 
after  the  war  was  over;  but  the  strong  opposition  to 
his  Louisiana  policy  in  Congress  must  be  accepted  as 
foreshadowing  the  hostile  attitude  of  radical  Repub 
licans  if  he  had  sought  to  carry  through  a  policy  like 
that  in  time  of  peace. 

He  would,  no  doubt,  have  found  the  people  with 
him,  for  a  time,  and  would  have  had  an  influence 
commensurate  with  his  fame  upon  Republicans  who 


RECONSTRUCTION  209 

against  Johnson  went  almost  to  the  limit  of  fanati 
cism.  The  ultimate  result  would  surely  have  been 
better,  but  at  a  cost  to  Lincoln's  name.  If  he  had 
tilted  with  an  intolerant  Congress  in  a  time  of  peace, 
no  matter  what  the  outcome,  we  almost  certainly 
should  have  a  different  Lincoln  in  our  legends  than 
we  have  to-day. 

Lincoln  outlined  a  Reconstruction  policy  in  his 
message  of  December,  1863,  in  accordance  with 
which  State  Governments  were  set  up  in  Louisiana 
and  Arkansas  by  order  of  the  military  commander 
of  the  department  acting  under  the  President's  direc 
tion.  This  did  not  meet  the  views  of  Congress.  In 
1864  a  bill  was  passed  providing  for  appointment 
of  provisional  governors  in  the  Confederate  States 
for  purposes  of  civil  administration  until  State  Gov 
ernments  should  be  recognized.  No  State  Govern 
ments  were  to  be  formed  until  after  the  suppres 
sion  of  military  resistance  to  the  United  States  and 
until  the  people  had  "  sufficiently  returned  to  their 
obedience  to  the  Constitution  and  laws."  The  bill 
provided  that  the  President  should  not  proclaim  a 
State  Government  as  reestablished  without  the  as 
sent  of  Congress.  It  emancipated  all  slaves. 

The  President  did  not  sign  the  bill,  and  after  ad 
journment  he  gave  his  reasons  in  a  special  procla 
mation;  he  was  not  ready  to  set  aside  the  free  State 


212  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

as  a  basis  of  a  controversy,  and  good  for  nothing  at 
all  —  a  mere  pernicious  abstraction.  We  all  agree 
that  the  seceded  States,  so-called,  are  out  of  their 
proper  practical  relation  with  the  Union  and  that  the 
sole  object  of  the  Government,  civil  and  military,  in 
regard  to  those  States  is  to  again  get  them  into  that 
proper  practical  relation.  I  believe  that  it  is  not  only 
possible,  but  in  fact  easier,  to  do  this  without  decid 
ing  or  even  considering  whether  these  States  have 
ever  been  out  of  the  Union,  than  with  it.  Finding 
themselves  safely  at  home,  it  would  be  utterly  im 
material  whether  they  had  ever  been  abroad." 

In  the  light  of  history,  these  words  seem  rea 
sonable;  yet  Sumner,  writing  of  them  to  his  friend, 
Dr.  Lieber,  said:  "The  President's  speech  and  other 
things  augur  confusion  and  uncertainty  in  the  future, 
with  hot  controversy.  Alas!  Alas!"  And  strange  as 
it  may  seem  to  us  to-day,  Sumner  was  not  alone  even 
in  that  hour  of  triumph  and  good- will. 

A  few  hours  later  and  Lincoln  was  dead.  Andrew 
Johnson  in  a  tragic  flash  was  President  of  the  United 
States.  It  was  the  sport  of  Fate  that  to  one  so  totally 
unlike  the  gentle,  wise,  and  patient  Lincoln  should 
have  been  assigned  the  task  which  he  laid  down,  yet 
while  the  nation  was  still  plunged  in  grief  there  were 
not  lacking  honest-minded  men  who  thought  they 
saw  the  guiding  hand  of  Providence  in  what  was  done. 


RECONSTRUCTION  213 

George  W.  Julian,  of  Indiana,  a  leading  member  of 
the  House,  tells  how  on  the  very  day  of  Lincoln's 
death  he  spent  most  of  the  afternoon  in  a  political 
caucus  held  for  the  purpose  of  considering  the  neces 
sity  for  a  new  Cabinet  and  a  line  of  policy  less  con 
ciliatory  than  that  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  "  and  while  every 
body  was  shocked  at  his  murder,  the  feeling  was 
nearly  universal  that  the  accession  of  Johnson  to  the 
Presidency  would  prove  a  Godsend  to  the  country. 
As  for  Mr.  Lincoln's  known  policy  of  tenderness  to 
the  rebels  which  now  so  jarred  upon  the  feelings  of  the 
hour,  his  well-known  views  on  the  subject  of  Recon 
struction  were  as  distasteful  as  possible  to  radical 
Republicans." 

The  next  day,  Wade,  Chandler,  Julian,  and  other 
radical  Republicans  called  on  the  new  President. 
Wade  exclaimed:  "Johnson,  we  have  faith  in  you. 
By  the  gods,  there  will  be  no  trouble  now  in  run 
ning  the  Government."  Johnson  thanked  him  and 
replied  in  words  which  came  often  to  his  lips:  "I 
hold  that  robbery  is  a  crime;  rape  is  a  crime;  treason 
is  a  crime;  and  crime  must  be  punished.  Treason 
must  be  made  infamous  and  must  be  punished,  and 
traitors  must  be  impoverished." 

Yet,  shortly,  Johnson  was  vehemently  agitating 
policies  which  went  much  farther  toward  the  re 
habilitation  of  the  old  leaders  in  the  seceded  States 


214  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

than  'those  which  Lincoln  had  gently  urged,  and 
the  very  radicals  who  had  hailed  him  as  a  savior 
were  damning  him  for  treason  to  the  cause.  A  few 
months  later,  John  Hay,  revisiting  Washington  after 
a  brief  tour  of  duty  abroad,  recalls  that  the  first 
words  of  his  old  friend,  Harry  Wise,  were,  "  Every 
thing  is  changed;  you'll  find  us  all  Copperheads." 
While  U.  H.  Painter,  war  correspondent,  Lincoln's 
and  Stanton's  confidant  and  friend,  declared,  "  You 
will  find  the  home  of  virtue  has  become  the  haunt  of 
vice."  l 

In  an  atmosphere  like  this,  stifling  with  intrigue 
and  passion,  with  an  ignorant,  stubborn,  and  loqua 
cious  President,  a  Cabinet  jealous  and  divided  among 
themselves,  a  Congress  groping  in  the  dark,  the 
honest-minded,  trustful,  straight-thinking  Grant, 
after  forty  years  of  obscurity  and  four  years  of  life 
in  camp,  received  his  first  lesson  in  politics. 

Johnson  believed  with  Lincoln  in  the  indestructi 
bility  of  the  States,  but  his  methods  were  radically 
different.  On  May  29,  1865,  hardly  a  month  from 
the  time  he  assumed  office,  he  issued  his  proclama 
tion  of  amnesty  and  pardon  to  all  who  would  take 
an  oath  to  observe  all  laws  and  proclamations  made 
during  the  war  with  reference  to  the  emancipation 
of  slaves,  excluding  from  its  provisions,  however, 
1  Life  of  John  Hay,  vol.  i,  p.  251. 


RECONSTRUCTION  215 

fourteen  specified  classes.  Among  the  classes  speci 
fied  were  not  only  most  of  the  men  who  had  held 
civil  or  military  offices  of  any  distinction,  but  also 
all  whose  taxable  property  was  estimated  at  over 
twenty  thousand  dollars.  Thus,  with  or  without  in 
tention,  he  would  eliminate  from  the  new  order  of  the 
South  most  members  of  that  intellectual,  landed,  and 
pedigreed  aristocracy  against  which  he  had  set  his 
face  throughout  his  political  career.  He  would  help 
create  a  new  governing  class,  to  be  chosen  chiefly 
from  the  poor- white  population,  who  hated  the 
negro  with  a  peculiar  hatred  arising  from  condi 
tions  prior  to  the  war,  when  of  these  two  classes  so 
cially  submerged,  the  slaves,  by  very  virtue  of  their 
slavery,  came  in  more  sympathetic  contact  with  the 
aristocracy  and  held  the  freemen  in  contempt. 

Johnson,  obstinate,  narrow,  suspicious,  and  dispu 
tatious,  a  poor  white  with  a  poor  white's  prejudices, 
a  Southerner  with  a  Southerner's  illogical  adherence 
to  a  strictly  logical  interpretation  of  the  Constitu 
tion,  a  Democrat  and  partisan  by  instinct  and  train 
ing,  was  temperamentally  incapable  of  cooperation 
with  Northern  Republicans  like  Sumner,  Chandler, 
Stevens,  and  Butler,  radical  to  the  last  degree  and 
indisposed  themselves  to  cooperation  except  on  lines 
which  they  themselves  laid  down.  Prior  to  his  ac 
cession  to  the  Presidency  he  had  hardly  been  north  of 


216  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Mason  and  Dixon's  line.  His  contact  with  Northern 
men  and  Northern  sentiment  was  confined  to  his 
experience  in  Washington  and  with  such  Federal 
officers  as  he  had  dealings  with  while  military  gov 
ernor  of  Tennessee.  He  was  unfamiliar  with  large 
cities,  had  no  first-hand  knowledge  of  industrial  com 
munities,  and  was  profoundly  ignorant  of  the  mani 
fold  activities  upon  which  the  prosperity  of  the  North 
has  always  rested.  The  North  in  turn  knew  almost 
nothing  good  of  him,  except  that  he  had  been  stoutly 
for  the  Union,  while  others  in  the  South,  of  wider 
culture  and  under  great  moral  obligations  to  the 
Union,  had  been  either  willfully  or  weakly  disloyal. 
Fresh  with  all  was  the  humiliating  spectacle  of  his 
installation  into  office  as  Vice-President  with  his  piti 
ful,  rambling,  maudlin  speech,  just  a  few  days  before 
he  was  called  so  unexpectedly  to  succeed  to  greater 
power  than  had  been  entrusted  to  any  other  Ameri 
can  except  Lincoln. 

A  wiser  man  would  have  been  humble  and  prayer 
ful  under  such  a  load,  striving  with  all  his  might  so  to 
conduct  himself  as  to  win  support  from  the  strong 
men  in  Congress  upon  whom  he  must  depend;  but 
Johnson,  driven  by  a  perverse  fate,  set  out  to  force 
them  to  his  own  way  of  thinking  without  even  trying 
to  discover  whether  there  might  not  be  a  common 
ground  upon  which  all  could  stand  while  struggling 


RECONSTRUCTION  217 

with  a  gigantic  problem.  True,  he  might  not  have 
got  along  with  Sumner  and  Stevens  in  any  circum 
stances.  Neither  might  Lincoln  if  he  had  lived.  But 
Lincoln  would  at  least  have  tried. 

The  one  man  whom  Johnson  went  out  of  the  way 
to  make  his  friend  was  Grant.  With  Lincoln  dead, 
he  recognized  in  Grant,  not  only  the  strongest  per 
sonal  force  in  the  North,  but  the  man  in  the  North 
for  whom  since  Appomattox  the  conquered  South 
erners  had  the  highest  esteem,  and  Johnson  was 
shrewd  enough  to  see  the  advantage  of  having  Grant 
on  his  side.  Lacking  real  knowledge  of  Northern  sen 
timent,  he  looked  to  Grant  as  its  embodiment.  He 
sought  Grant  out.  He  sent  him  almost  daily  notes. 
He  formed  a  habit  of  dropping  in  casually  at  Grant's 
house  or  office;  he  made  it  a  point  to  attend  Mrs. 
Grant's  receptions.  He  sought  every  opportunity  to 
have  Grant  by  his  side  in  public. 

There  was  a  degree  of  shrewdness  in  this  course, 
which  was  in  marked  contrast  with  Stanton's  tact 
lessness.  Ever  since  Grant's  arrival  in  Washington, 
Stanton  had  taken  obvious  delight  in  asserting  his 
authority,  sending  for  Grant  to  come  to  his  own 
office  on  all  sorts  of  occasions  and  in  all  sorts  of 
weather,  though  Grant  was  thus  frequently  com 
pelled  to  cross  the  broad  and  muddy  expanse  of  Penn 
sylvania  Avenue  and  climb  painfully  up  the  War 


218  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Department  stairs;  for  those  were  the  days  before 
asphalt  pavements,  telephones,  and  electric  elevators, 
and  the  headquarters  of  the  Army  was  in  a  building 
widely  separated  from  the  office  of  the  Secretary  of 
War. 

Grant,  throughout  the  early  months  of  the  Adminis 
tration,  conducted  himself  with  great  good  sense,  ac 
cepting  the  President's  attentions  without  comment 
and  without  committing  himself  to  any  line  of  policy. 
In  fact,  the  general  course  of  the  Administration, 
from  the  time  of  the  proclamation  of  amnesty  of 
May  29,  up  to  the  time  when  Congress  met  on  De 
cember  5,  had  much  to  commend  it. 

While  holding  that  the  question  of  suffrage  was  a 
matter  for  the  States  themselves  to  determine,  John 
son  was  favorable  to  a  qualified  suffrage  for  the  negro, 
although  at  that  time  the  negro  had  the  right  to  vote 
in  only  six  Northern  States — Maine,  New  Hampshire, 
Vermont,  Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  and  New 
York;  and  New  York  required  a  property  qualifica 
tion  for  the  negro  voter  which  was  not  necessary  for 
the  white.  In  light  of  all  conditions  Johnson  showed 
breadth  of  view  as  well  as  cunning  when  he  wrote  in 
a  telegram  to  Governor  Sharkey,  of  Mississippi,  on 
August  15,  1865,  with  reference  to  the  work  of  the 
Constitutional  Convention :  — 

"  If  you  could  extend  the  elective  franchise  to  all 


RECONSTRUCTION  219 

persons  of  color  who  own  real  estate  valued  at  not 
less  than  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  and  pay  taxes 
thereon,  you  would  completely  disarm  the  adversary 
and  set  an  example  the  other  States  will  follow.  This 
you  can  do  with  perfect  safety,  and  you  thus  place 
the  Southern  States  in  reference  to  free  persons  of 
color  upon  the  same  basis  with  the  free  States.  I  hope 
and  trust  your  convention  will  do  this." 

If  Johnson  had  been  blessed  with  Lincoln's  tact  or 
could  have  used  the  prestige  of  his  name,  who  can 
say  that  he  might  not  have  brought  Congress  into 
line  with  some  such  programme,  thus  obviating  the 
tragedy  of  immediate  universal  negro  suffrage?  But 
it  was  inevitable  that  Congress  should  have  a  hand 
in  the  work  of  Reconstruction,  especially  with  Sum- 
ner  the  leader  of  the  Senate  and  Stevens  the  leader  of 
the  House,  two  strong,  persistent  idealists  and  radi 
cals,  determined  upon  universal  suffrage  for  the  re 
cently  emancipated  slaves.  "Refer  the  whole  ques 
tion  of  Reconstruction  to  Congress  where  it  belongs," 
Sumner  cried  in  August.  "  What  right  has  the  Pres 
ident  to  reorganize  States?"  -a  perfectly  logical 
and  defensible  position,  but  significant  in  contrast  to 
Sumner's  earlier  willingness  in  April  to  have  Recon 
struction  by  executive  decree  so  long  as  he  supposed 
the  franchise  would  be  conferred  upon  the  negro 
through  this  means.  Sumner  was  less  concerned  about 


220  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

the  encroachment  of  the  Executive  than  about  giving 
the  negroes  in  the  South  the  indiscriminate  right  to 
vote. 

It  was  during  this  period  of  executive  supremacy, 
with  eight  States  reconstructed  by  executive  decree 
and  awaiting  the  action  of  Congress  on  the  admission 
of  their  Senators  and  Representatives,  that  Grant 
was  sent  by  Johnson  on  a  mission  to  the  Southern 
States  in  order  that  he  might  report  to  Congress  the 
feeling  among  those  lately  in  rebellion.  Grant  left 
Washington  on  November  29,  1865,  and  visited  Ra 
leigh,  Charleston,  Savannah,  Augusta,  and  Atlanta. 
His  trip  was  short,  but  everywhere  he  "  said  much 
and  conversed  freely  with  the  citizens  of  those  States, 
as  well  as  with  officers  of  the  army  who  have  been 
stationed  among  them." 

"  I  am  satisfied,"  he  wrote  in  his  official  report 
under  date  of  December  18,  "  that  the  mass  of  think 
ing  men  of  the  South  accept  the  present  situation  of 
affairs  in  good  faith. 

"  My  observations  lead  me  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  citizens  of  the  Southern  States  are  anxious  to  re 
turn  to  self-government  within  the  Union  as  soon  as 
possible;  that  while  reconstructing  they  want  and  re 
quire  protection  from  the  Government;  and  that  they 
are  in  earnest  in  wishing  to  do  what  is  required  by  the 
Government,  not  humiliating  to  them  as  citizens, 


RECONSTRUCTION  221 

and  that  if  such  a  course  was  pointed  out  they  would 
pursue  it  in  good  faith.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  there 
cannot  be  a  greater  commingling  at  this  time  between 
the  citizens  of  the  two  sections  and  particularly  of 
those  entrusted  with  the  lawmaking  power." 

He  did  not  meet  any  one,  "either  those  holding 
places  under  the  Government  or  citizens  of  the  South 
ern  States,"  who  thought  it  practicable  to  withdraw 
the  military  from  the  South  at  present.  "  The  white 
and  black  mutually  require  the  protection  of  the 
General  Government,"  and  the  reason  he  gives  is  that 
"four  years  of  war,  during  which  law  was  executed 
only  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet  throughout  the 
States  in  rebellion,  have  left  the  people  possibly  in  a 
condition  not  to  yield  that  ready  obedience  to  civil 
authority  the  American  people  have  generally  been 
in  the  habit  of  yielding." 

General  James  H.  Wilson,  then  in  command  at 
Macon,  Georgia,  and  once  a  member  of  Grant's 
staff,  relates  how  on  this  trip  Grant  summoned  him 
to  Atlanta  and  how  they  sat  up  all  night  discussing 
the  war  and  the  problem  of  Reconstruction.  In  the 
conversation,  while  Grant  "  did  not  hesitate  to  dis 
credit  the  judgment  of  Andrew  Johnson  nor  to  con 
ceal  his  dislike  of  Stanton's  arbitrary  ways,  he  dis 
trusted  the  senatorial  group  with  which  Stanton 
was  associated,  and  declared  that  his  own  views 


222  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

were  not  only  thoroughly  conservative,  but  thor 
oughly  kind  as  to  the  generals  and  politicians  of  the 
South." 

The  Southern  people  at  this  time  looked  for  harsh 
treatment,  especially  in  view  of  Johnson's  repeated 
threats  to  make  treason  odious  and  to  impoverish  the 
traitors.  They  would  not  have  been  surprised  if  there 
had  been  an  attempt  to  confiscate  their  property  and 
distribute  it  among  the  emancipated  slaves.  Such  a 
punishment  they  would  have  submitted  to  sullenly, 
and  almost  anything  short  of  that  they  would  have 
accepted  as  a  disagreeable  price  for  resuming  their 
place  in  the  Union. 

If  at  this  period  men  like  Sumner,  Stevens,  and 
Wade  had  been  willing  to  confer  with  Johnson, 
and  had  not  been  radically  insistent  upon  securing 
for  the  negro  rights  and  privileges  which  the  negro 
was  not  qualified  to  exercise,  Reconstruction  might 
have  resulted  far  differently,  and  we  might  have  been 
spared  the  sorry  spectacle  of  a  bitter  fight  between 
Congress  and  the  President  with  the  unseemly  im 
peachment  proceedings.  Fessenden  and  Henry  Wil 
son,  more  generous  and  farseeing  than  Sumner,  were 
inclined  to  think  the  President  right  in  all  questions 
except  suffrage;  and  Wilson  wrote:  "We  have  a 
President  who  does  not  go  as  far  as  we  do  in  the 
right  direction;  but  we  have  him  and  cannot  change 


RECONSTRUCTION  223 

him,  and  we  had  better  stand  by  the  Administration 
and  bring  it  right." 

Of  the  military  commanders  in  the  South,  one  of 
the  most  sagacious  was  General  John  M.  Schofield, 
who  years  later  became  Lieutenant-General  of  the 
Army  on  the  death  of  Sheridan.  He  had  attributes  of 
statesmanship,  and  might  with  great  advantage  have 
been  consulted  by  the  civilians  who  had  to  solve  in 
Washington  the  grave  problems  of  Reconstruction. 
With  regard  to  the  proposal  of  Chase,  Sumner,  and 
other  radicals,  that  the  negro  should  be  given  the 
immediate  right  to  vote,  a  step  which  he  contended 
rightly  was  unconstitutional  —  he  wrote  on  May  10, 
1865:- 

".  .  .  My  second  reason  for  objecting  to  the  propo 
sition  is  the  absolute  unfitness  of  the  negroes  as  a 
class  for  any  such  responsibility.  They  can  neither 
read  nor  write.  They  have  no  knowledge  whatever  of 
law  or  government.  They  do  not  even  know  the 
meaning  of  the  freedom  that  has  been  given  them, 
and  are  much  astonished  when  they  are  informed 
that  it  does  not  mean  that  they  are  to  live  in  idle 
ness  and  be  fed  by  the  government.  ...  I  have  yet 
to  see  a  single  one  among  the  many  Union  men  in 
North  Carolina  who  would  willingly  submit  for  a 
moment  to  the  immediate  elevation  of  the  negro  to 
political  equality  with  the  white  man.  They  are  all, 


224  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

or  nearly  all,  content  with  the  abolition  of  slavery. 
Many  of  them  are  rejoiced  that  it  is  done.  But  to 
raise  the  negro  in  his  present  ignorant  and  degraded 
condition  to  be  their  political  equals  would  be  in 
their  opinion  to  enslave  them  (the  white  citizens). 
If  they  did  not  rebel  against  it,  it  would  only  be 
because  rebellion  would  be  hopeless.  A  government 
so  organized  would  in  no  sense  be  a  popular  gov 
ernment." 

If  Reconstruction  could  have  been  left  to  soldiers 
like  Grant  and  Schofield,  who  had  fought  the  South, 
knew  its  leaders,  and  held  their  respect,  the  result 
would  have  been  infinitely  better  than  that  which 
came  from  the  unseemly  quarrels  of  civilian  politi 
cians. 

If  there  was  ever  a  time  when  a  military  govern 
ment  might  have  proved  beneficent  in  the  United 
States,  this  was  that  time.  No  soldier  could  have 
made  a  sorrier  mess  of  Reconstruction  than  the  po 
litical  leaders  who  wrangled  it  into  shape,  and  almost 
any  one  of  the  great  Union  generals  could  have  been 
trusted  to  do  a  better  job.  Under  a  military  govern 
ment  the  country  would  have  been  spared  the  miser 
able  squabbles  in  Washington,  the  bungling  attempts 
of  Johnson  to  force  upon  the  country  policies  the 
good  features  of  which  he  inadequately  compre 
hended  and  the  bad  features  of  which  were  bound  to 


RECONSTRUCTION  225 

raise  impossible  expectations  among  the  Southern 
people,  the  persistence  of  the  radicals  in  Congress  in 
imposing  indiscriminate  negro  suffrage  upon  resentful 
communities,  the  appointment  of  provisional  civilian 
governors,  the  letting  loose  of  a  devastating  swarm 
of  carpet-baggers  upon  a  proud  and  helpless  people, 
the  imposition  of  prescriptive  qualifications  which 
debarred  the  best  men  in  the  South  from  holding 
office,  thus  limiting  those  who  exercised  the  suffrage 
to  a  choice  of  carpet-baggers  and  negroes  for  places 
of  political  and  judicial  responsibility. 

But  it  is  idle  to  conjecture  what  might  have  hap 
pened  if  Grant  or  Sherman  or  Thomas  or  Schofield 
had  been  in  supreme  control.  With  all  their  fame  the 
military  leaders  of  the  Civil  War  were  in  positions  of 
hopeless  subordination,  taking  orders  from  civilians 
far  less  familiar  than  they  with  Southern  necessities, 
in  most  cases  wholly  ignorant  of  the  Southern  tem 
per,  many  of  them  actuated  by  vindictiveness  or 
personal  ambition,  the  best  of  them  obsessed  with  the 
delusion  that  for  the  negro  there  could  be  no  middle 
ground  between  the  suffrage  and  slavery,  that  there 
could  be  no  charm  in  liberty  without  a  vote. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

LESSONS  IN  POLITICAL  INTRIGUE 

GRANT  would  have  been  far  better  off  if  he  had 
kept  away  from  Washington,  but  it  was  ordered 
otherwise,  and  he  who  had  commanded  all  the  Union 
armies  in  the  field  was  at  the  beck  and  call  of  men 
who  could  not  lead  a  regiment.  True,  he  was  learning 
something  of  the  devious  ways  of  politics  in  prepara 
tion  for  the  baffling  tasks  before  him;  but  what  he 
learned  was  at  a  heavy  cost.  "  Do  not  stay  in  Wash 
ington,"  Sherman  had  written  him  in  affectionate 
warning  when  he  was  made  Lieutenant-General. 
"  Halleck  is  better  qualified  than  you  to'  stand  the 
buffets  of  intrigue  and  policy.  .  .  .  For  God's  sake 
and  for  your  country's  sake,  come  out  of  Washing 
ton!" 

And  four  years  later,  in  his  letter  to  the  President, 
after  Grant's  wretched  fray  with  Johnson,  Sherman 
returned  to  the  same  theme,  this  time  not  as  a  seer 
of  evil  but  as  its  chronicler :  — 

"  I  have  been  with  General  Grant  in  the  midst  of 
death  and  slaughter,  —  when  the  howls  of  people 
reached  him  after  Shiloh;  when  messengers  were 
speeding  to  and  from  his  army  bearing  slanders  to 


LESSONS   IN   POLITICAL   INTRIGUE      227 

induce  his  removal  before  he  took  Vicksburg;  in  Chat 
tanooga  when  the  soldiers  were  stealing  the  corn  of 
the  starving  mules  to  satisfy  their  own  hunger;  at 
Nashville  when  he  was  ordered  to  the  *  forlorn  hope ' 
to  command  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  so  often  de 
feated  —  and  yet  I  never  saw  him  more  troubled 
than  since  he  has  been  in  Washington,  and  been  com 
pelled  to  read  himself  a  '  sneak  and  deceiver '  based 
on  reports  of  four  of  the  Cabinet,  and  apparently 
your  knowledge." 

The  period  between  these  letters  had  been  packed 
with  incident.  Grant  had  come  out  of  war  trium 
phantly,  and  with  the  death  of  Lincoln  found  himself 
a  giant  plagued  by  pygmies,  a  figure  looming  higher 
in  the  estimation  of  the  people  than  he  himself  quite 
realized,  yet  led  about  by  an  ill-bred,  accidental 
President,  and  subject  to  humiliating  treatment  by 
a  domineering  Secretary,  only  to  be  entangled  at  the 
end  in  a  dispute  between  these  two  which  raised  with 
partisans  of  each  a  question  of  his  own  veracity. 

If  at  the  close  of  war,  when  conditions  were  nearly 
ripe  for  a  real  welding  of  spirit  North  and  South, 
Grant  had  been  in  supreme  control,  that  work  might 
have  gone  on  to  a  complete  fruition,  for  even  John 
son,  in  spite  of  all  his  truculence  and  the  instinctive 
prejudice  against  him,  commanded  for  a  time  a 
measure  of  support.  Johnson  perversely  managed 


228  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

first  to  alienate  the  South  by  vehement  denuncia 
tion  of  its  leaders  and  then  the  North  by  equally 
violent  urging  of  his  policies  when  sane  persuasion 
might  have  brought  North  and  South  together  in 
lasting  unity  of  sentiment;  Grant  would  have  had 
no  animosities  and  would  have  had  no  policy  except 
the  cultivation  of  good-will.  But  as  General  of  the 
Armies,  subject  always  to  authority  and  military  dis 
cipline,  he  could  not  influence  events  and  had  to 
watch  them  drift.  His  ideas  on  the  negro  problem 
had  been  of  slow  growth.  Before  the  war  he  had 
not  been  an  abolitionist  nor  even  an  anti-slavery 
man,  but  he  came  to  see  that  slavery  must  go. 

Twenty  years  later  in  his  book  he  wrote:  "  I  do  not 
believe  that  the  majority  of  the  Northern  people  at 
that  time  were  in  favor  of  negro  suffrage.  They  sup 
posed  that  it  would  naturally  follow  the  freedom  of 
the  negro,  but  that  there  would  be  a  time  of  proba 
tion  in  which  the  ex-slaves  could  prepare  themselves 
for  the  privileges  of  citizenship  before  the  full  right 
would  be  conferred;  but  Mr.  Johnson,  after  a  com 
plete  revolution  of  sentiment,  seemed  to  regard  the 
South,  not  only  as  an  oppressed  people,  but  as  the 
people  best  entitled  to  consideration  of  any  of  our 
citizens.  This  was  more  than  the  people  who  had 
secured  to  us  the  perpetuation  of  the  Union  were 
prepared  for,  and  they  became  more  radical  in  their 
views." 


LESSONS   IN   POLITICAL   INTRIGUE      229 

And  again:  "  But  for  the  assassination  of  Mr.  Lin 
coln,  I  believe  the  great  majority  of  the  Northern 
people,  and  the  soldiers  unanimously,  would  have 
been  in  favor  of  a  speedy  reconstruction  on  terms  that 
would  be  the  least  humiliating  to  the  people  who  had 
rebelled  against  their  Government.  They  believed,  I 
have  no  doubt,  as  I  did,  that  besides  being  the  mildest, 
it  was  also  the  wisest  policy.  The  people  who  had 
been  in  rebellion  must  necessarily  come  back  into  the 
Union  and  be  incorporated  as  an  integral  part  of  the 
nation.  .  .  .  They  surely  would  not  make  good  citi 
zens  if  they  felt  they.had  a  yoke  around  their  necks." 

Yet  with  feelings  at  the  outset  of  consideration 
toward  the  South,  with  his  instinctive  chivalry,  with 
out  natural  sympathy  for  radical  men  or  measures,  he 
was  driven  by  events,  by  the  tactlessness  of  the  Presi 
dent,  by  the  perverseness  of  the  time,  into  a  position 
where  he  could  align  himself  no  otherwise  than  with 
the  advocates  of  wholesale  suffrage  for  the  negro  in 
the  South,  protected  if  need  be  by  military  force. 


CHAPTER   XXVI 
JOHNSON'S  BREAK  WITH  CONGRESS 

JOHNSON'S  programme  met  with  no  organized  resist 
ance  up  to  December,  1865,  when  the  new  Congress 
gathered  after  a  nine  months'  vacation  from  the  4th 
of  March.  Indeed,  the  people  of  the  North  left  to 
themselves  seemed  to  approve  it.  Beginning  in  Au 
gust,  State  after  State  in  the  South,  acting  in  accord 
ance  with  the  Executive's  decree,  had  held  conven 
tions  which  repealed  or  nullified  the  ordinance  of 
secession,  abolished  slavery,  and  in  most  cases  repu 
diated  the  debts  incurred  in  war.  Mississippi,  South 
Carolina,  Georgia,  Alabama,  North  Carolina,  fell  into 
line,  balking  only  at  the  President's  proposal  in  some 
cases  that  the  negro  should  be  given  qualified  suf 
frage.  The  men  who  sat  in  constitutional  conventions 
and  in  legislatures  chosen  under  the  new  order  were 
of  high  character,  willing  to  accept  conditions.  The 
"  erring  sisters,"  chastened  in  spirit,  were  ready  to 
come  home.  It  looked  as  though  a  reunited  coun 
try  would  stand  behind  the  President.  Republican 
and  Democratic  conventions  in  Northern  States 
vied  with  one  another  in  endorsing  his  policy  and 
pledging  their  support.  Pennsylvania,  under  the  lead 


JOHNSON'S   BREAK   WITH   CONGRESS     231 

of  Stevens,  and  Massachusetts,  under  that  of  Sum- 
ner,  alone  refused  assent.  Andrew  and  Morton,  the 
best  of  the  War  Governors,  urged  cooperation  with 
the  President,  expressing  sympathy  for  the  South  and 
opposing  unconditional  suffrage  for  the  blacks.  Even 
Stanton,  as  late  as  May,  1866,  expressed  approval  of 
Johnson's  acts  up  to  the  time  that  Congress  met. 
His  quarrel  was  of  gradual  development.  It  was  not 
until  after  Congress  adjourned  in  July,  1866,  that  the 
open  rupture  came. 

With  the  gathering  of  Congress,  Stevens  in  the 
House  and  Sumner  in  the  Senate  set  out  to  organize 
the  opposition.  Up  to  that  time  there  were  no  dif 
ferences  which  could  not  have  been  reconciled,  and 
for  nearly  three  months  thereafter  nothing  happened 
which  might  not  have  been  adjusted  with  fair  con 
cession  on  each  side.  Sumner  and  Stevens  with  their 
radical  proposals  could  not  have  carried  Congress 
with  them  if  Johnson  had  been  inclined  to  counsel 
with  the  majority,  yielding  here  and  there  for  har 
mony;  for  Sumner  and  Stevens  wanted  to  go  much 
farther  and  faster  than  the  great  body  of  Northern 
men  were  ready  then  to  follow.  And  while  these  two 
detested  Johnson,  they  wrangled  with  each  other  and 
in  reality  had  slender  bonds  of  sympathy.  Stevens, 
though  a  partisan  fanatic,  was  intensely  practical. 
Sumner  was  a  turgid  visionary,  a  devotee,  who  in 


232  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

spite  of  his  nobility  of  purpose  could  never  quite  ad 
just  himself  to  facts. 

If  Johnson  had  been  wise  enough  to  play  on  indi 
vidual  traits,  as  Lincoln  doubtless  would  have  done, 
if  he  had  not  persisted  in  having  things  exactly  his 
own  way,  he  might  have  gained  all  his  essentials  and 
the  story  of  his  stormy  term  need  never  have  been 
told.  Reconstruction  might  have  come  about  in  such 
a  manner  as  to  leave  lasting  friendliness  between  the 
sections,  with  the  Southern  States  restored  to  their 
old  places  in  the  Union  and  gradual  enfranchisement 
of  the  negro  as  he  became  qualified  to  vote. 

Few  Northern  people  really  thought  the  negroes 
should  have  suffrage  right  away.  They  looked  for  it 
in  time,  but  with  a  hazy  expectation.  On  the  whole 
they  were  amenable  to  Johnson's  plan  of  admitting 
the  Senators  from  Southern  States  and  leaving  to 
the  States  themselves  the  suffrage  question  so  long 
as  former  slaves  received  protection  in  their  natural 
rights.  In  the  election  held  that  fall,  Connecticut, 
Wisconsin,  and  Minnesota  had  declared  specifically 
against  giving  the  vote  to  colored  persons  and  in  a 
general  way  the  elections  were  regarded  as  an  en 
dorsement  of  the  Administration.  The  people  were 
not  concerned  about  the  prerogatives  of  the  Execu 
tive  and  Congress.  They  were  interested  in  results  and 
Johnson  seemed  to  be  doing  fairly  well.  There  had 


JOHNSON'S   BREAK   WITH  CONGRESS     233 

been  no  impressive  number  of  abolitionists  at  the 
beginning  of  the  war,  and  there  was  no  overwhelm 
ing  love  for  the  negro  at  its  close.  The  mass  of  the 
people  understood  that  problem  of  the  South  better 
than  Sumner  or  Garrison  or  Phillips.  There  were 
not  many  who  would  have  been  so  ingenuous  as  Gar 
rison  on  his  visit  to  Charleston  in  April,  1865,  when, 
overcome  by  the  apparent  gratitude  of  a  crowd  of 
twelve  hundred  emancipated  plantation  hands,  he 
cried  out :  "  Well,  my  friends,  you  are  free  at  last.  Let 
us  give  three  cheers  for  Freedom";  and  was  aston 
ished  that  there  was  no  response.  The  freedmen  did 
not  know  how  to  cheer.  Like  children  they  looked  on 
emancipation  as  a  Christmas  present.  Yet  Sumner 
would  have  given  them  the  vote  at  once.  Early  in 
December,  after  informing  Gideon  Welles  in  one  of 
his  delicious  talks,  that  he  had  read  everything  on 
republican  government  from  Plato  to  the  last  French 
pamphlet,  he  denounced  the  President's  policy  as  the 
greatest  and  most  criminal  error  ever  committed  by 
any  government  and  solemnly  asserted  that  a  general 
officer  from  Georgia  had  informed  him  within  a  week 
that  the  negroes  of  that  State  were  better  qualified 
to  establish  and  maintain  a  republican  government 
than  the  whites.1  So  far  credulity  could  go  with  a 
high-minded  man. 

1  Diary  of  Gideon  Welles,  vol.  in,  pp.  176-81. 


234  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

The  Congress  elected  a  year  before,  at  the  same 
time  with  Lincoln,  had  not  been  chosen  with  any 
thing  like  this  in  view;  but  the  majority  were  greatly 
interested  in  maintaining  their  prerogatives  against 
executive  encroachment  and  here  they  were  on  com 
mon  ground  with  Stevens.  At  the  beginning  they 
refused  seats  to  Senators  and  Representatives  from 
States  reorganized  under  Johnson's  plan,  thus  giving 
Johnson  his  contention  that  Congress  was  not  con 
stituted  properly  since  eleven  States  remained  un 
represented. 

The  President's  first  message,  written  by  George 
Bancroft,  was  temperate  and  admirable  in  tone,  met 
with  general  approval  among  the  people,  and  irri 
tated  only  a  few  implacables  in  Congress.  Three  days 
before  the  Senate  met,  Sumner  had  talked  for  two 
hours  and  a  half  with  Johnson  at  the  White  House, 
recording  his  opinion  that  the  President  "does  not 
understand  the  case.  Much  that  he  said  was  painful 
from  its  prejudice,  ignorance,  and  perversity,"  and 
discontinued  all  personal  relations  then  and  there.  On 
the  other  hand,  John  Sherman  was  writing  to  his 
brother,  "he  seems  kind  and  patient  with  all  his 
terrible  responsibilities."  So  much  depends  upon  the 
angle  of  approach. 

Lyman  Trumbull,  once  a  Democrat  and  never  a 
radical  Republican,  chairman  of  ,the  Senate  Judi- 


JOHNSON'S   BREAK   WITH   CONGRESS     235 

ciary  Committee,  reported  after  the  holidays  a  bill  to 
enlarge  the  powers  of  the  Freedmen's  Bureau  so  as  to 
secure  for  the  freedmen,  among  other  things,  civil 
rights  and  "equal  and  exact  justice  before  the  law." 
The  bill  passed  House  and  Senate  by  a  two-thirds 
vote  in  each,  but  on  February  19  the  President  vetoed 
it.  Congress  had  never  yet  in  all  its  history  passed 
a  really  important  bill  over  a  veto,  and  did  not  do 
so  now;  but  on  the  next  day,  February  20,  the  House 
adopted  a  concurrent  resolution,  reported  by  Stev 
ens  from  the  Committee  on  Reconstruction,  that  no 
Senator  or  Representative  from  any  Southern  State 
should  be  admitted  to  either  body  until  Congress  had 
declared  such  State  entitled  to  representation. 

Up  to  this  hour  Johnson  seemed  to  have  the  coun 
try  with  him.  All  the  members  of  his  Cabinet,  includ 
ing  Stanton,  acquiesced.  And  then  his  fatal  failing, 
intemperance  in  speech,  worked  his  undoing.  On 
February  22  a  crowd  of  his  supporters  who  had  been 
meeting  in  a  theater  marched  to  the  White  House 
and  he  went  out  to  see  them.  Members  of  the  Cabinet 
urged  him  not  to  talk  and  he  said  he  would  follow  their 
advice;  but  his  pet  passion  overcame  him;  there  were 
no  bounds  to  his  vituperative  tongue.  Goaded  on  by 
the  crowd  he  cried :  — 

"  I  look  upon  as  being  opposed  to  the  fundamental 
principles  of  this  government  and  as  now  laboring  to 


236  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

destroy  them:  Thaddeus  Stevens,  of  Pennsylvania, 
Charles  Sumner  and  Wendell  Phillips,  of  Massachu 
setts.  .  .  .  Are  those  who  want  to  destroy  our  institu 
tions  and  change  the  character  of  the  government 
not  satisfied  with  the  blood  that  has  been  shed?  Are 
they  not  satisfied  with  one  martyr?  .  .  .  Have  they 
not  honor  and  courage  enough  to  effect  the  removal  of 
the  presidential  obstacle  otherwise  than  through  the 
hands  of  the  assassin?  I  am  not  afraid  of  assassins!" 

In  ten  minutes  he  had  lowered  himself  beyond  re 
habilitation  in  the  country's  eyes  and  had  given 
Congress  an  advantage  that  they  could  not  have 
gained  without  his  aid.  From  that  moment  his  was 
a  losing  cause.  Later,  Congress  passed  a  Civil  Rights 
Bill.  He  vetoed  it  and  Congress  now  established  a 
precedent;  it  overrode  his  veto.  In  June  the  resolu 
tion  upon  which  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  is  based 
was  adopted,  and  in  July  a  new  Freedmen's  Bureau 
Bill  was  passed,  in  spite  of  the  President's  objection. 
Congress  had  acquired  the  habit  of  defiance.  Vetoes 
had  become  too  cheap  and  frequent  to  challenge  their 
respect. 

Thus  Congress  carried  through  its  plan  for  Re 
construction,  moderate  and  sensible,  as  a  whole,  and 
Johnson  saw  himself  discredited.  It  was  not  till  June, 
1866,  that  Stanton  let  the  public  know  that  he  had 
opposed  the  veto  of  the  Civil  Rights  Bill. 


JOHNSON'S   BREAK   WITH   CONGRESS     237 

It  is  not  easy  now  to  put  one's  finger  on  a  serious 
objection  to  Johnson's  plan  divorced  from  personal 
dislike  of  the  Executive;  but  the  fact  that  he  had 
undertaken  to  reconstruct  the  Southern  States  with 
out  waiting  for  Congress  to  assemble,  and  had  failed 
to  insist  upon  the  franchise  for  negroes  as  well  as 
whites,  had  given  his  opponents  needed  ammunition; 
his  own  intemperate  denunciation  had  done  the  rest. 

By  the  same  token,  in  the  congressional  plan,  as 
crystallized  in  legislation  during  that  session,  one  can 
distinguish  little  to  which  Johnson  might  not  with 
self-respect  have  given  his  endorsement.  On  the 
whole  it  was  as  good  a  piece  of  work  as  could  have 
been  expected,  opening  a  path  through  which  the 
Southern  States  might  have  resumed  their  places  in 
the  Union  without  self-abasement.  The  Fourteenth 
Amendment  did  not  impose  negro  suffrage  upon  any 
State,  but  left  that  question  to  the  States  concerned, 
subject  only  to  curtailment  of  representation  in  pro 
portion  to  the  number  of  citizens  to  whom  the  fran 
chise  might  be  denied.  The  Freedmen's  Bureau  Bill 
and  the  Civil  Rights  Bill  in  the  form  then  passed 
contained  no  onerous  conditions.  The  States  lately 
in  rebellion  were  left  to  the  control  of  their  own  local 
affairs. 

If  Johnson  had  then  only  shown  a  spirit  of  con 
cession,  the  Southern  question  might  have  been  set- 


238  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

tied  with  the  adjournment  of  that  first  session  in 
July,  1866.  To  his  appeal  the  South  would  doubtless 
have  listened  with  respect;  but  so  long  as  he  kept  up 
the  controversy  and  continued  his  assaults  upon  the 
motives  of  all  who  took  exception  to  his  plan,  they 
would  have  been  superhuman  not  to  wait  for  terms 
more  satisfying  to  their  pride.  Their  tardiness,  en 
couraged  by  Johnson's  folly,  led  to  the  deplorable 
enactments  later  which  held  the  seeds  of  years  of 
sectional  strife. 

Elections  to  a  new  Congress  were  to  be  held  in  the 
autumn  following  adjournment  of  the  first  session, 
and  there  was  nothing  to  it  for  Johnson,  with  his  pas 
sion  for  dispute,  except  to  utilize  the  opportunity  to 
force  the  North  to  his  own  way  of  thinking.  Late  in 
August  he  set  out  on  the  "  swing  around  the  circle," 
taking  Grant,  Farragut,  and  several  members  of  the 
Cabinet  on  his  train. 

Grant  did  not  want  to  go.  He  had  for  months  been 
drifting  farther  and  farther  away  from  Johnson.  But 
he  was  indispensable  to  Johnson's  purpose.  In  the 
controversy  between  the  President  and  Congress  it 
had  been  assumed  both  North  and  South  that  his 
sympathies  were  with  Johnson  and  when  he  now 
left  Washington  in  Johnson's  company  and  appeared 
day  after  day  on  the  same  platform  with  him,  the 
suspicion  was  strengthened:  but  this  was  all  a  part 


JOHNSON'S   BREAK   WITH   CONGRESS     239 

of  Johnson's  cunning  scheme,  conceived  by  Seward, 
it  is  said. 

Johnson  left  a  vituperative  trail  in  every  city  of 
importance  between  Washington  and  Chicago.  At 
Cleveland  he  was  manifestly  in  his  cups.  And  he  was 
hardly  started  on  his  trip  before  the  country  knew 
that  he  was  lost.  The  most  praiseworthy  cause  could 
not  have  weathered  such  a  champion.  The  people 
were  humiliated  and  ashamed.  Grant  seized  the 
earliest  opportunity  to  plead  sickness,  quit  the  party, 
and  return  to  Washington.  He  had  seen  Johnson  at 
his  worst;  and  he  could  never  hold  him  in  respect 
again. 

Already  the  relations  between  Johnson  and  Stan- 
ton  were  badly  strained  Stanton  was  loath  to  carry 
out  Johnson's  orders  interfering  with  the  work  of  the 
district  commanders  in  the  South,  and  the  Presi 
dent  was  soon  hunting  for  some  one  who  would  be 
amenable. 

Uprisings  in  the  South  seemed  imminent.  There 
had  been  riots  in  New  Orleans  two  days  after  the  ad 
journment  of  Congress,  July  28,  and  Grant  began  to 
look  for  trouble.  On  October  12  he  wrote  confiden 
tially  to  Sheridan,  who  had  quit  Texas  and  was  in 
command  at  New  Orleans :  "  I  regret  to  say  that  since 
the  unfortunate  difference  between  the  President  and 
Congress,  the  former  becomes  more  violent  with  the 


240  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

opposition  he  meets  with,  until  now  but  few  people 
who  were  loyal  to  the  Government  during  the  rebel 
lion  seem  to  have  any  influence  with  him.  None  have 
unless  they  join  in  a  crusade  against  Congress  and 
declare  their  acts,  the  principal  ones,  illegal;  and  in 
deed  I  much  fear  that  we  are  fast  approaching  the 
time  when  he  will  want  to  declare  the  body  itself 
unconstitutional  and  revolutionary.  Commanders  in 
Southern  States  will  have  to  take  care  and  see  if  a 
crisis  does  come  that  no  armed  headway  can  be  made 
against  the  Union." 

The  result  of  the  elections  was  cumulative  in  its 
irritating  effect  upon  the  discredited  Johnson.  Maine 
and  Vermont  in  September,  Pennsylvania,  Ohio, 
Indiana,  and  Iowa  in  October,  and  all  the  other 
Northern  States  in  November  gave  great  majorities 
against  the  Administration.  Only  Maryland,  Dela 
ware,  and  Kentucky  were  Democratic.  The  Repub 
licans  had  a  larger  majority  in  House  and  Senate  than 
ever,  amply  more  than  the  two  thirds  needed  to 
override  a  veto  of  any  Reconstruction  measure  they 
might  see  fit  to  pass. 

Another  man  in  Johnson's  place  would  have  ac 
cepted  the  result  of  the  elections  as  determining  the 
question  of  Reconstruction  so  far  as  his  administra 
tion  was  concerned,  for  the  Congress  just  chosen 
would  not  expire  until  his  own  term  ended.  Only 


JOHNSON'S   BREAK   WITH   CONGRESS     241 

colossal  egotism  or  abounding  ignorance  could  have 
prompted  opposition  to  so  overwhelming  a  majority, 
and  only  devotion  to  an  all-absorbing  moral  issue 
could  have  excused  it.  But  Johnson  fatuously  under 
took  to  thwart  the  will  of  Congress,  with  sorry  results 
both  to  himself  and  to  the  section  he  set  out  to  serve. 
The  Southern  leaders  as  a  rule  would  reluctantly 
have  taken  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  had  it  not 
been  for  Johnson's  influence,  but  owing  to  his  encour 
agement,  every  one  of  the  eleven  seceding  States  in 
the  period  between  August,  1866,  and  February, 
1867,  refused  to  ratify.  As  a  practical  necessity, 
therefore,  Congress  was  forced  to  adopt  more  drastic 
measures  to  bring  the  recalcitrants  into  line.  It  was 
intolerable  that  the  Southern  States,  who  before  the 
war  had  enjoyed  representation  in  Congress  for  only 
three  fifths  of  the  number  of  their  slaves,  should,  as 
a  result  of  insurrection  and  defeat,  come  back  into 
the  Union  with  representation  based  on  the  entire 
number  of  citizens,  both  white  and  black,  while  only 
the  whites  had  the  privilege  of  the  vote,  thus  giving 
the  whites  of  the  South,  in  spite  of  the  terrible  loss 
in  Northern  lives  and  treasure  during  the  rebellion 
a  greater  proportionate  representation  than  ever  in 
the  House  and  the  Electoral  College.  The  Southern 
leaders  would  have  seen  this  had  they  been  let  alone. 
But  Johnson  blocked  the  way. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

AT  ODDS  WITH  JOHNSON 

GRANT  was  entirely  out  of  sympathy  with  Johnson 
by  this  time,  though  as  a  soldier  under  orders  he  did 
not  publicly  take  issue  with  his  official  chief.  His  im 
mediate  superior,  Stanton,  by  the  fall  of  1866,  had 
gone  over  boldly  to  the  radicals  in  Congress,  with 
whom  for  months  he  had  already  been  in  secret  cor 
respondence,  so  that  Grant  was  in  a  trying  place.  We 
have  seen  how  he  wrote  to  Sheridan,  but  outwardly  he 
maintained  a  reticence  so  complete  that  only  John 
son  and  some  members  of  the  Cabinet  suspected  how 
he  really  felt.  In  his  testimony  before  the  House 
Judiciary  Committee  on  July  18,  1867,  after  the 
quarrel  had  progressed  much  farther,  he  thus  ex 
plained  himself:  — 

"  I  have  always  been  attentive  to  my  own  duties, 
and  tried  not  to  interfere  with  other  people's.  I  was 
always  ready  to  originate  matters  pertaining  to  the 
Army,  but  I  was  never  ready  to  originate  matters 
pertaining  to  the  civil  government  of  the  United 
States.  When  I  was  asked  my  opinion  about  what 
had  been  done  I  was  willing  to  give  it.  I  originated  no 
plan  and  suggested  no  plan  for  civil  government.  I 


AT   ODDS  WITH   JOHNSON  243 

only  gave  my  views  on  measures  after  they  had  been 
originated.  I  simply  expressed  an  anxiety  that  some 
thing  should  be  done  to  give  some  sort  of  control 
down  there.  There  were  no  governments  there  when 
the  war  was  over  and  I  wanted  to  see  some  govern 
ments  established  and  wanted  to  see  it  done  quickly. 
I  did  not  pretend  to  say  how  it  should  be  done  or  in 
what  form." 

Riots  were  threatened  in  Baltimore  at  election 
time  in  November,  1866.  It  was  a  controversy  be 
tween  rival  boards  of  police  commissioners,  one 
appointed  by  the  Democratic  Governor,  Swann, 
the  other  claiming  independent  authority.  Johnson 
wanted  to  send  troops  to  help  the  Governor  to  up 
hold  his  own  commissioners.  He  had  with  him  all  the 
Cabinet  but  Stanton.  Grant  protested  earnestly,  and 
when  he  found  the  President  persisting,  he  wrote  an 
official  letter  to  the  Secretary  of  War  calling  attention 
to  the  law  which  specified  the  only  circumstances  in 
which  the  military  forces  of  the  United  States  could 
be  called  out  to  interfere  in  state  affairs.  The  troops 
were  not  sent  and  Grant,  by  his  personal  influence  in 
two  visits  to  Baltimore,  persuaded  the  contending 
parties  to  leave  their  quarrel  to  the  courts.  If  John 
son  had  prevailed,  the  Federal  troops  would  have 
been  used  against  the  party  which  had  been  loyal 
to  the  Union  and  in  behalf  of  former  Confederates. 


244  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Grant  thought  he  saw  here  a  disloyal  intent.    What 
ever  its  purpose,  he  saved  an  ugly  situation. 

Maximilian  was  still  in  Mexico.  Napoleon,  yield 
ing  to  persistent  pressure  and  convinced  at  last  of  the 
futility  of  his  designs,  had  ordered  the  French  troops 
withdrawn.  He  had  good  reason  for  this  change  of 
policy.  Grant  two  years  before  had  sent  Schofield  to 
Texas  with  secret  orders  to  organize  if  necessary  an 
army  of  American  volunteers,  for  enrollment  under 
the  Liberal  Government  in  Mexico,  to  drive  out  the 
invaders.  He  thought  that  Seward  had  befogged  the 
issue  and  that  if  he  had  a  partiality,  it  leaned  toward 
imperial  success.  Grant  was  insistent  on  enforcing 
the  Monroe  Doctrine,  and  kept  the  Minister  from 
France  in  Washington  informed  of  how  he  felt.  Na 
poleon  knew  that  Grant  would  almost  certainly  in  a 
few  months  be  President,  clothed  with  authority 
which  now  he  lacked.  At  last  Seward  sent  Schofield 
to  Paris  with  instructions  to  "  get  your  legs  under 
Napoleon's  mahogany  and  tell  him  he  must  get  out 
of  Mexico."  So  the  French  army  quit,  but  Maxi 
milian  with  quixotic  chivalry  remained.  His  fragile 
empire  was  already  crumbling,  and  the  republican 
government  which  we  had  recognized  was  coming  to 
its  own.  There  was  no  special  reason  why  Grant  or 
any  other  army  officer  should  go  to  Mexico;  yet  in 
the  middle  of  October,  just  as  he  had  become  annoy- 


AT   ODDS  WITH   JOHNSON  245 

ingly  unsympathetic  with  Johnson's  policies,  a  pre 
text  was  found  to  send  him  there. 

Campbell,  who  had  been  appointed  Minister  a  long 
while  before  and  had  dawdled  the  intervening  time 
away,  was  due  at  last  to  enter  on  his  service,  and  John 
son  ordered  Grant  to  accompany  him  "  to  give  the 
Minister  the  benefit  of  his  advice  in  carrying  out  the 
instructions  of  the  Secretary  of  State."  At  the  same 
time  Sherman,  who  had  been  outspoken  in  favor  of 
Administration  policies,  was  ordered  to  Washington, 
the  intention  being  to  detail  him  to  Grant's  military 
duties. 

To  the  amazement  of  Johnson  and  Seward,  Grant 
refused  to  go.  He  had  divined  the  purpose  of  the 
mission.  Johnson  renewed  the  order  in  a  day  or  two. 
Grant  again  declined,  this  time  in  writing.  A  little 
later  he  was  summoned  to  a  Cabinet  meeting.  The 
Secretary  of  State  read  him  detailed  instructions  for 
his  mission  as  if  nothing  unusual  had  occurred.  Grant 
was  not  disturbed.  He  told  the  President  and  the 
Cabinet  that  he  did  not  intend  to  go.  Turning  to  the 
Attorney-General,  Johnson  exclaimed:  "Mr.  Attor 
ney-General,  is  there  any  reason  why  General  Grant 
should  not  obey  my  orders?  Is  he  in  any  way  in 
eligible  to  this  position?  "  "  I  can  answer  that  ques 
tion,  Mr.  President,"  said  Grant,  "without  referring 
to  the  Attorney-General.  I  am  an  American  citizen 


246  ULYSSES    S.  GRANT 

and  eligible  to  any  office  to  which  any  American  is 
eligible.  I  am  an  officer  of  the  Army  and  bound  to 
obey  your  military  orders.  But  this  is  a  civil  office, 
a  purely  diplomatic  duty  that  you  offer  me,  and  I 
cannot  be  compelled  to  undertake  it."  No  one  re 
plied  and  Grant  left  the  room. 

Even  after  this  the  President  persisted.  Stanton 
was  told  to  ask  Grant  to  proceed  to  Mexico;  and 
Grant  had  to  write  another  letter  declining  to  go. 

When  Sherman  arrived  in  Washington,  he  reported 
first  to  Grant,  who  told  him  what  the  President  had 
in  mind.  The  rest  of  the  story,  as  Sherman  tells  it  in 
his  "  Memoirs,"  sheds  an  interesting  light  upon  the 
characters  of  Grant  and  Johnson.  The  President's 
plain  misconstruction  of  Grant's  attitude  helps  to 
illuminate  the  controversy  between  the  two  over  a 
year  later,  when  the  issue  of  veracity  became  acute. 

"  General  Grant,"  says  Sherman,  "  denied  the  right 
of  the  President  to  order  him  on  a  diplomatic  mission 
unattended  by  troops;  said  that  he  had  thought  the 
matter  over,  would  disobey  the  order  and  stand  the 
consequences.  He  manifested  much  feeling  and  said 
it  was  a  plot  to  get  rid  of  him.  I  then  went  to  Presi 
dent  Johnson,  .  .  .  who  said  that  General  Grant  was 
about  to  go  to  Mexico  on  business  of  importance  and 
he  wanted  me  at  Washington  to  command  the  Army 
in  General  Grant's  absence.  I  then  informed  him  that 


AT   ODDS  WITH   JOHNSON  247 

General  Grant  would  not  go  and  he  seemed  amazed; 
said  .  .  .  that  Mr.  Campbell  had  been  accredited  to 
Juarez  .  .  .  and  the  fact  that  he  was  accompanied  by 
so  distinguished  a  soldier  would  emphasize  the  act  of 
the  United  States.  I  simply  reiterated  that  General 
Grant  would  not  go  and  that  he,  Mr.  Johnson,  could 
not  afford  to  quarrel  with  him  at  that  time."  Sher 
man  suggested  that  if  the  real  object  were  to  put 
Campbell  in  official  communication  with  Juarez,  the 
bill  could  be  filled  better  by  Hancock  or  Sheridan, 
and  that  he  himself  could  be  sooner  spared  than 
Grant,  who  was  engaged  in  the  most  delicate  and 
difficult  task  of  reorganizing  the  Army  under  the 
Act  of  July  28,  1866.  "Certainly,"  answered  the 
President;  "  if  you  will  go,  that  will  answer  perfectly." 

So  Sherman  went  to  Mexico  with  Campbell.  As 
he  sailed  from  New  York  Harbor  on  the  Susque- 
hanna,  he  turned  to  the  captain  and  said:  "My  mis 
sion  is  already  ended.  By  substituting  myself  I  have 
prevented  a  serious  quarrel  between  the  Adminis 
tration  and  Grant."  As  might  have  been  expected, 
his  journey,  from  which  he  returned  three  months 
later,  was  a  waste  of  time. 

When  the  Thirty-ninth  Congress  met  for  its  second 
session  on  December  5, 1866,  the  Fourteenth  Amend 
ment  had  not  yet  been  ratified.  Congress  had  voted 
that  no  Senator  or  Representative  should  be  ad- 


248  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

mitted  from  either  of  the  eleven  States  which  had 
been  in  insurrection  until  the  right  of  such  State  to 
representation  had  been  agreed  to  by  both  Houses 
of  Congress.  A  bill  proposed  by  Stevens,  and  re 
ported  from  the  Committee  on  Reconstruction  in 
the  closing  days  of  the  session,  providing  for  the  re- 
admission  of  the  seceding  States  upon  the  accept 
ance  by  them  of  the  Fourteenth  amendment,  had 
not  become  a  law. 

Congress  turned  at  once  to  Reconstruction  meas 
ures.  Stevens  promptly  introduced  a  bill  providing  for 
valid  governments  in  the  States  still  unreconstructed, 
on  the  basis  of  negro  suffrage  and  white  disfranchise- 
ment.  He  was  goaded  to  vindictiveness  by  the  con 
tumacy  of  Southern  Legislatures  and  Johnson's 
stubbornness,  while  many  who  had  been  inclined  to 
moderation  six  months  before  were  now  ready  to 
take  the  verdict  of  the  elections  as  justifying  meas 
ures  as  radical  as  might  be  urged.  The  bill,  which  be 
came  known  as  the  Reconstruction  Act,  brushed 
aside  the  State  Governments  created  through  execu 
tive  decree  which  had  been  in  feeble  operation  for 
many  months,  divided  their  territory  into  five  mili 
tary  districts,  each  to  be  commanded  by  an  army 
officer  of  the  rank  at  least  of  Brigadier-General,  who 
was  to  be  designated  by  the  General  of  the  Army. 
This  bill,  unpalatable  to  a  numerous  minority  of  his 


AT   ODDS  WITH   JOHNSON  249 

own  party,  because  it  provided  for  indeterminate 
military  rule,  was  whipped  through  the  House  by 
Stevens  with  a  scourge  of  taunts  which  brought  the 
tardy  into  line.  While  the  bill  was  pending  in  the 
Senate,  Grant  quietly  let  it  leak  out  that  he  would 
rather  leave  the  designation  of  district  commanders 
to  the  President  than  to  the  General  of  the  Army  — 
and  in  this  form  the  bill  became  law  over  the  Presi 
dent's  veto  on  the  2d  of  March. 

As  finally  enacted,  the  law  provided  that  Senators 
and  Representatives  from  a  seceded  State  should  be 
admitted  to  seats  in  Congress  on  the  adoption  of  a 
constitution  providing  among  other  things  for  uni 
versal  suffrage  without  discrimination  as  to  color  and 
the  adoption  of  the  Fourteenth  Amendment.  It  was 
left  to  the  military  commander  in  each  district  to 
take  the  initiative  in  summoning  a  convention  to  pave 
the  way  for  Reconstruction. 

While  the  struggle  between  the  President  and  Con 
gress  had  been  going  on,  Johnson  had  arbitrarily  re 
moved  several  thousand  Republican  office-holders 
and  filled  their  places  with  his  own  sympathizers.  To 
meet  this,  Congress,  on  March  2,  passed  over  his  veto 
the  Tenure  of  Office  Act,  which  took  away  from  him 
the  power,  without  the  Senate's  consent,  to  remove 
office-holders  originally  confirmed  by  the  Senate.  His 
disregard  of  this  act  in  Stanton's  case  brought  on  the 


250  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

series  of  events  leading  up  to  his  impeachment;  yet 
it  is  a  striking  fact  that  Stanton  himself,  though  not 
then  on  cordial  terms  with  Johnson,  joined  with 
Seward  in  helping  to  frame  the  veto  measure  which 
Johnson  signed. 

Thus  the  Thirty-ninth  Congress,  chosen  six  months 
before  the  close  of  the  war  and  meeting  for  the  first 
time  nine  months  after  Lincoln's  death,  placed  on  the 
statutes  over  his  successor's  veto  radical  measures 
for  the  reconstruction  of  the  South  which  Lincoln 
would  not  have  stood  for  and  which  only  a  small 
minority  of  its  own  membership  would  have  favored 
when  it  first  assembled  —  measures  which  ushered 
in  a  period  of  racial  and  sectional  hate,  of  violence  and 
blood-letting,  of  extravagance,  corruption,  and  na 
tional  degeneracy  for  which  our  history  presents  no 
parallel,  not  even  in  the  stress  of  civil  war.  Grant, 
though  the  first  citizen  of  the  Republic,  already  set 
apart  for  the  chief  magistracy,  had  the  habit  of  mili 
tary  subordination  so  firmly  fixed  and  was  so  lacking 
in  political  experience  that  he  had  little  influence  on 
legislation.  He  had  to  watch  the  current  drift,  un 
conscious,  for  all  that  the  records  show,  that  he  was 
fated  at  his  entrance  upon  the  Presidency  to  find  a 
problem  confronting  him  which  the  wisest  and  most 
masterful  of  statesmen  could  hardly  hope  to  solve. 
He  had  no  sympathy  with  Johnson,  Stevens,  or 


AT   ODDS  WITH   JOHNSON  251 

Sunnier  in  their  quarrels.  He  owed  them  no  grati 
tude  for  the  hateful  legacy  bequeathed  to  him  by  their 
mistaken  zeal. 

The  new  Congress,  which  met  on  March  4  in 
accordance  with  a  law  enacted  to  curb  Johnson's 
control,  stirred  Johnson's  wrath  still  further  by  leg 
islation  stripping  him  of  authority  under  the  Recon 
struction  acts.  Stanton  approved  this  new  legisla 
tion.  There  is  evidence  that  he  drafted  its  principal 
features.  He  was  outspoken  in  Cabinet  meetings 
against  the  President  and  his  associates  in  the  Ad 
ministration.  His  breach  with  Johnson  was  complete. 
Congress  adjourned,  on  July  20,  to  November  3.  It 
was  hardly  out  of  the  way  before  Johnson  set  out  to 
get  rid  of  Stanton  and  to  displace  Sheridan.  Sheri 
dan  had  really  started  the  row  by  removing  state  and 
city  officers  concerned  in  the  New  Orleans  riots  a 
year  earlier  and  Governor  J.  Madison  Welles,  "who," 
he  wrote,  was  "  a  political  trickster  and  a  dishonest 
man  ...  his  conduct  has  been  as  sinuous  as  the  mark 
left  in  the  dust  by  the  movement  of  a  snake." 

Before  taking  definite  action  Johnson  told  Grant 
what  he  had  in  mind.  This  was  on  August  1.  Grant 
entered  a  strong  protest  which  he  embodied  in  a 
letter  later  in  the  same  day :  — 

*'  I  take  the  liberty  of  addressing  you  privately  on 
the  subject  of  the  conversation  we  had  this  morning, 


252  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

feeling  as  I  do  the  great  danger  to  the  welfare  of  the 
country  should  you  carry  out  the  designs  then  ex 
pressed. 

"  First,  on  the  subject  of  the  displacement  of  the 
Secretary  of  War.  His  removal  cannot  be  effected 
against  his  will  without  the  consent  of  the  Senate.  It 
is  but  a  short  time  since  the  United  States  Senate  was 
in  session,  and  why  not  then  have  asked  for  his  re 
moval  if  it  was  desired?  It  certainly  was  the  intention 
of  the  legislative  branch  of  the  Government  to  place 
Cabinet  officers  beyond  the  power  of  Executive  re 
moval,  and  it  is  pretty  well  understood  that  so  far 
as  Cabinet  ministers  are  affected  by  the  *  Tenure  of 
Office  Bill,'  it  was  intended  specially  to  protect  the 
Secretary  of  War,  whom  the  country  felt  great  con 
fidence  in.  The  meaning  of  the  law  may  be  explained 
away  by  an  astute  lawyer,  but  common  sense  and  the 
views  of  loyal  people  will  give  to  it  the  effect  intended 
by  its  framers. 

"On  the  subject  of  the  removal  of  the  very  able 
commander  of  the  Fifth  Military  District,  let  me  ask 
you  to  consider  the  effect  it  would  have  upon  the 
public.  He  is  universally  and  deservedly  beloved  by 
the  people  who  sustained  this  Government  through 
its  trials,  and  feared  by  those  who  would  still  be 
enemies  of  the  Government.  .  .  . 

"  In  conclusion  allow  me  to  say,  as  a  friend,  desiring 


AT   ODDS  WITH   JOHNSON  253 

peace  and  quiet,  the  welfare  of  the  whole  country 
North  and  South,  that  it  is  in  my  opinion  more  than 
the  loyal  people  of  this  country  (I  mean  those  who 
supported  the  Government  during  the  great  rebel 
lion)  will  quietly  submit  to,  to  see  the  very  men  of  all 
others  whom  they  have  expressed  confidence  in  re 
moved." 

Whereupon  the  President,  on  August  5,  sent  Stan- 
ton  this  note :  — 

"Sir:  — Public  considerations  of  a  high  character 
constrain  me  to  say  that  your  resignation  as  Secre 
tary  of  War  will  be  accepted." 

To  which  Stanton  immediately  replied:  — 

"  I  have  the  honor  to  say  that  public  considerations 
of  a  high  character,  which  alone  have  induced  me  to 
continue  at  the  head  of  the  Department,  constrain 
me  not  to  resign  the  office  of  Secretary  of  War  before 
the  next  meeting  of  Congress." 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

ACTING  SECRETARY  OF  WAR 

THWARTED  in  his  demand  for  Stanton's  resignation, 
Johnson  decided  to  suspend  him  and  put  Grant  in  his 
place.  No  one  could  say  with  certainty  even  then 
just  where  Grant  stood  on  the  disputed  questions  of 
the  hour.  It  was  a  hard  part  to  play,  with  passion 
raging  everywhere,  but  he  had  thus  far  saved  him 
self  from  taking  sides.  Ben  Wade,  one  of  the  most 
bitter  radicals  in  Congress,  said  he  had  often  tried 
to  find  out  whether  Grant  was  for  Congress  or  for 
Johnson  or  what  he  was  for,  but  never  could  get  any 
thing  out  of  him;  "for  as  quick  as  he'd  talk  poli 
tics  Grant  would  talk  horse."  Actually,  however,  we 
have  seen  that  Grant  was  now  convinced  that  the 
congressional  policy,  however  regrettable  in  certain 
features,  had  become  inevitable  through  Johnson's 
mistaken  course.  He  believed  primarily  in  strict 
obedience  to  the  law. 

On  August  12,  1867,  therefore,  Johnson  sent  word 
to  Stanton  suspending  him  from  the  office  of  Secre 
tary  of  War  and  directing  him  to  turn  the  records  of 
the  office  over  to  General  Grant.  Grant  notified  Stan- 
ton  of  his  assignment,  concluding  a  courteous  note :  — 

"  In  notifying  you  of  my  acceptance,  I  cannot  let 


ACTING   SECRETARY   OF   WAR          255 

the  opportunity  pass  without  expressing  to  you  my 
appreciation  of  the  zeal,  patriotism,  firmness,  and 
ability  with  which  you  have  ever  discharged  the  du 
ties  of  Secretary  of  War." 

Stanton  responded  with  equal  courtesy;  but  he  en 
closed  with  this  communication  the  copy  of  a  vivid 
letter  which  he  had  sent  that  same  day  to  Johnson, 
denying  the  legality  of  his  suspension  and  con 
cluding:  — 

"But  inasmuch  as  the  General  commanding  the 
armies  of  the  United  States  has  been  appointed  ad 
interim,  and  has  notified  me  that  he  has  accepted  the 
appointment,  I  have  no  alternative  but  to  submit, 
under  protest,  to  superior  force." 

Gideon  Welles,  the  sturdy  and  vivacious  chronicler 
of  individual  dislikes,  gives  in  his  "Diary"  the  mem 
orandum  of  a  conversation  he  had  with  Grant  a  few 
days  later  at  the  War  Department,  in  which  Grant 
clearly  showed  his  sympathy  with  Congress,  though 
not,  it  must  be  said,  with  cogent  reasoning,  as  Welles 
transcribes  his  views.  "On  the  whole,"  comments 
the  controversial  diarist,  "  I  did  not  think  so  highly  of 
General  Grant  after  as  before  this  conversation.  He 
is  a  political  ignoramus.  .  .  .  Obviously  he  has  been 
tampered  with  and  flattered  by  the  Radicals,  who 
are  using  him  and  his  name  for  their  selfish  and  par 
tisan  purposes." 


256  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

It  was  a  mistake  for  Grant  to  take  Stanton's  place. 
He  served  as  Secretary  from  August,  1867,  to  Janu 
ary,  1868;  and  nothing  was  so  eventful  in  his  service 
as  the  manner  of  his  leaving  it,  although  he  remedied 
abuses  in  administration,  and  rid  the  Government 
of  unnecessary  waste,  in  rotten  contracts,  growing 
out  of  war.  The  people  did  not  understand  his  at 
titude.  There  was  no  reason  why  they  should.  His 
letter  to  the  President  protesting  against  the  removal 
of  Sheridan  and  Stanton  was  not  published  at  the 
time.  The  North  did  not  appreciate  that  he  had 
kept  the  place  from  falling  into  the  hands  of  one  who 
might  be  more  subservient  to  Johnson's  whims.  They 
were  resentful  and  indignant  at  the  sacrifice  of  Stan- 
ton  and  blamed  Grant  for  what  looked  like  acquies 
cence. 

As  Grant  maintained  his  taciturnity,  no  one,  out 
side  the  Cabinet  and  his  personal  staff,  suspected  the 
continual  friction  between  the  War  Department  and 
the  White  House.  He  attended  Cabinet  meetings  as 
seldom  as  possible  and  avoided  the  discussion  of 
political  questions,  leaving  usually  as  soon  as  the 
routine  business  was  ended.  He  tried  to  keep  his  civil 
and  military  characters  distinct.  It  was  an  incon 
gruous  combination  with  a  touch  of  Gilbert  and  Sul 
livan.  As  Acting  Secretary  at  the  War  Department  in 
the  morning  he  would  sign  orders  to  himself  as  Gen- 


ACTING   SECRETARY   OF   WAR  257 

eral  of  the  Army  and  then  trudge  across  the  street  to 
Army  headquarters,  where  he  would  acknowledge 
their  receipt  and  execute  them. 

The  open  break  with  Johnson  came  on  Sheridan's 
removal.  In  that  encounter  Grant  got  the  worst  of  it. 
In  giving  his  order  removing  Sheridan  and  putting 
Thomas  in  his  place,  Johnson  invited  suggestions  and 
Grant  replied :  — 

"  I  am  pleased  to  avail  myself  of  your  invitation  to 
urge  —  earnestly  urge,  urge  in  the  name  of  patriotic 
people  —  that  this  order  should  not  be  insisted  upon. 
It  is  the  will  of  the  country  that  General  Sheridan 
should  not  be  removed  from  his  present  command. 
This  is  a  republic  where  the  will  of  the  people  is 
the  law  of  the  land.  I  beg  that  their  voice  may  be 
heard." 

This  and  more  like  it,  so  lacking  in  Grant's  usual 
simplicity  and  restraint,  Johnson  punctured  with  the 
retort: — 

"I  am  not  aware  that  the  question  of  retaining 
General  Sheridan  in  command  of  the  Fifth  Military 
District  has  ever  been  submitted  to  the  people  them 
selves  for  determination.  .  .  .  General  Sheridan  has 
rendered  himself  exceedingly  obnoxious  by  the  man 
ner  in  which  he  has  exercised  the  powers  conferred 
by  Congress  and  still  more  so  by  the  resort  to  au 
thority  not  granted  by  law.  .  .  .  His  removal,  there- 


258  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

fore,  cannot  be  regarded  as  an  effort  to  defeat  the 
laws  of  Congress." 

These  letters  were  made  public  after  Sheridan's 
removal.  Johnson  was  praised  in  the  South  for  his 
discomfiture  of  Grant  and  Grant  was  criticized  in  the 
North  for  the  feebleness  of  his  stand  against  Johnson. 
He  might  have  drawn  a  lesson  from  the  incident 
that  he  was  less  fit  for  controversy  than  command. 

Johnson,  on  December  12,  1867,  just  three  weeks 
after  Congress  met  again  after  a  long  recess,  sent  a 
message  telling  all  about  Stanton's  suspension,  forti 
fied  with  documents  and  containing  interesting  rev 
elations  in  regard  to  Stanton's  own  attitude  toward 
the  Tenure  of  Office  Act.  For  an  example :  — 

"  Every  member  of  my  Cabinet  advised  me  that 
the  proposed  law  was  unconstitutional.  All  spoke 
without  doubt  or  reservation,  but  Mr.  Stanton's  con 
demnation  of  the  law  was  the  most  elaborate  and 
emphatic.  ...  I  was  so  much  struck  with  the  full 
mastery  of  the  question  manifested  by  Mr.  Stanton 
.  .  .  that  I  requested  him  to  prepare  the  veto  upon 
this  Tenure  of  Office  Bill.  This  he  declined  on  the 
ground  of  physical  disability,  .  .  .  but  stated  his  readi 
ness  to  furnish  what  aid  might  be  required  in  the 
preparation  of  materials  for  the  paper." 

Talk  about  impeachment  rumbled  in  the  air.  Dur 
ing  the  preceding  winter  several  resolutions  had  been 


ACTING   SECRETARY   OF   WAR          259 

presented  in  the  House,  had  been  considered  by  com 
mittees,  and  as  late  as  February  15  had  been  disap 
proved. 

Then  in  a  week,  committee  and  House  reversed 
themselves.  On  February  22,  1868,  just  two  years 
from  the  day  Johnson  made  his  ill-fated  speech  from 
the  White  House  steps,  the  Reconstruction  Com 
mittee  unanimously  reported  a  resolution  of  im 
peachment,  and  two  days  later  the  resolution  was 
adopted  by  the  House,  128  to  47,  the  negative  votes 
all  Democrats.  What  had  happened  to  bring  about 
so  swift  a  change? 

The  Senate  had  duly  considered  Johnson's  reasons 
for  suspending  Stanton  and  resolved  that  they  were 
insufficient.  This  was  late  in  the  afternoon  of  Janu 
ary  13,  the  Senate  having  had  the  question  under  con 
sideration  since  January  11.  On  the  morning  of  the 
14th,  Grant  went  to  the  office  of  the  Secretary  of  War, 
locked  and  bolted  the  door  on  the  outside,  turned  the 
key  over  to  the  Adjutant- General,  and  at  once  sent 
a  formal  letter  to  the  President,  by  the  hand  of  Gen 
eral  Comstock,  saying  that  he  had  been  notified  of 
the  action  of  the  Senate  and  that  by  the  terms  of  the 
law  his  own  functions  as  Secretary  of  War  ceased  with 
the  reception  of  the  notice.  Stanton  was  once  more 
in  possession. 

With  customary  incivility  almost  his  first  act  was 


260  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

to  send  a  messenger  to  Grant's  office  with  word  that 
he  "wanted  to  see  him."  Had  it  not  been  before  the 
days  of  electricity,  he  would  no  doubt  have  pressed  a 
buzzer,  as  happened  afterwards  with  other  secretaries 
and  other  generals.  Both  Grant  and  Sherman  four 
months  before  his  removal  had  found  Stanton's  ar 
rogance  insufferable,  and  Grant  at  one  time  had  con 
cluded  that  either  he  or  Stanton  must  resign.1 

1  "In  1866, 1867,  and  1868,  General  Grant  talked  to  me  freely 
several  times  of  his  differences  with  Secretary  Stanton.  His  most 
emphatic  declaration  on  that  subject,  and  of  his  own  intended 
action  in  consequence,  appears  from  the  records  to  have  been 
made  after  Stanton's  return  to  the  war  office  in  January,  1868, 
when  his  conduct  was  even  more  offensive  to  Grant  than  it  had 
been  before  Stanton's  suspension  in  August,  1867,  and  when  Grant 
and  Sherman  were  trying  to  get  Stanton  out  of  the  war  office.  At 
the  time  of  General  Grant's  visit  to  Richmond,  Virginia,  as  one  of 
the  Peabody  Trustees,  he  said  to  me  that  the  conduct  of  Mr.  Stan- 
ton  had  become  intolerable  to  him,  and,  after  asking  my  opinion, 
declared  in  emphatic  terms  his  intention  to  demand  either  the 
removal  of  Stanton  or  the  acceptance  of  his  own  resignation.  But 
the  bitter  personal  controversy  which  immediately  followed  be 
tween  Grant  and  Johnson,  the  second  attempt  to  remove  Stanton 
in  February,  1868,  and  the  consequent  impeachment  of  the  Presi 
dent,  totally  eclipsed  the  more  distant  and  lesser  controversy  be 
tween  Grant  and  Stanton,  and  doubtless  prevented  Grant  from 
taking  the  action  in  respect  to  Stanton's  removal  which  he  in 
formed  me  at  Richmond  he  intended  to  take."  (Schofield,  Forty- 
six  Years  in  the  Army,  pp.  412-13.) 


CHAPTER   XXIX 

A  QUESTION  OF  VERACITY  — THE  IMPEACHMENT 
PROCEEDINGS  —  ELECTION  AS  PRESIDENT 

JOHNSON  was  furious.  That  day  a  bitter,  far-reaching 
dispute  began,  involving  the  good  faith  and  truth 
fulness  of  Grant  and  the  veracity  of  Johnson.  It 
severed  all  relations  between  the  two.  Johnson  con 
tended  that  the  Tenure  of  Office  Act  was  unconsti 
tutional,  and  that  in  any  event,  by  the  manner  of 
its  phrasing,  it  did  not  apply  to  Stanton  or  any  other 
of  Lincoln's  appointees.  He  wanted  to  test  it  in  the 
courts,  and  he  declared  that  Grant  agreed  to  "  return 
the  office  to  my  possession  in  time  to  enable  me  to 
appoint  a  successor  before  final  action  by  the  Senate 
upon  Mr.  Stanton's  suspension,  or  would  remain  as 
its  head  awaiting  a  decision  of  the  question  by  judi 
cial  proceedings." 

Grant  denied  that  he  had  made  such  an  agreement. 
He  admitted  that  some  time  after  assuming  the  duties 
of  Secretary,  when  the  President  asked  his  views  as 
to  the  course  which  Stanton  must  pursue  to  gain 
possession  of  the  office  in  case  the  Senate  should  not 
concur  in  his  suspension,  he  had  replied  in  substance 
that  Stanton  would  have  to  appeal  to  the  courts  to 
reinstate  him.  "  Finding  that  the  President  was  de- 


262  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

sirous  of  keeping  Mr.  Stanton  out  of  office,  whether 
sustained  in  the  suspension  or  not,  I  stated  that  I  had 
not  looked  particularly  into  the  Tenure  of  Office  Bill, 
but  that  what  I  had  stated  was  a  general  principle 
and  if  I  should  change  my  mind  in  this  particular  case 
I  would  inform  him  of  the  fact.  Subsequently,  on 
reading  the  Tenure  of  Office  Bill  closely,  I  found  that 
I  could  not  without  violation  of  the  law  refuse  to 
vacate  the  office  of  Secretary  of  War  the  moment  Mr. 
Stanton  was  reinstated  by  the  Senate,1  even  though 
the  President  should  order  me  to  retain  it,  which  he 
never  did.  Taking  this  view  of  the  subject  and  learn 
ing  on  Saturday,  the  llth  instant,  that  the  Senate 
had  taken  up  the  subject  of  Mr.  Stanton's  suspen 
sion,  after  some  conversation  with  Lieutenant-Gen- 
eral  Sherman  and  some  members  of  my  staff,  in  which 
I  stated  that  the  law  left  me  no  discretion  as  to  my 
action  should  Mr.  Stanton  be  reinstated,  and  that  I 
intended  to  inform  the  President,  I  went  to  the  Presi 
dent  for  the  sole  purpose  of  making  this  decision 
known  and  did  so  make  it  known.  In  doing  this  I 

1  Sec.  5  — •  That  if  any  person  shall,  contrary  to  the  provision 
of  this  Act,  accept  any  appointment  to  or  employment  in  any  of 
fice,  or  shall  hold  or  exercise  any  such  office  or  employment,  he 
shall  be  deemed,  and  is  hereby  declared  to  be,  guilty  of  a  high  mis 
demeanor,  and,  upon  trial  and  conviction  thereof,  he  shall  be  pun 
ished  therefor  by  a  fine  not  exceeding  ten  thousand  dollars  or  by 
imprisonment  not  exceeding  five  years,  or  both  said  punishments, 
in  the  discretion  of  the  court. 


A   QUESTION   OF   VERACITY  263 

fulfilled  the  promise  made  in  our  last  preceding  con 
versation  on  the  subject." 

The  trouble  was  that  Johnson  did  not  know  Grant. 
He  could  not  comprehend  finality  of  purpose  in  one 
who  did  not  storm  and  bluster.  Like  many  other 
stubborn  men  of  narrow  opportunities  he  overesti 
mated  his  own  power  of  persuasion.  As  Grant  was 
leaving  after  announcing  his  decision,  Johnson  said 
he  would  expect  to  see  him  again.  To  Johnson  this 
meant  further  argument  with  the  probability  of 
Grant's  acceding  to  his  views.  To  Grant  it  meant 
nothing  of  the  sort.  He  had  made  up  his  mind. 
Johnson  had  misjudged  Grant  once  before  when  he 
told  Sherman  Grant  was  going  to  Mexico  after  Grant 
had  said  he  did  not  intend  to  go.  He  might  have 
profited  by  that  experience. 

The  14th  was  Cabinet  day.  Johnson,  in  whose  own 
hand  Comstock  had  placed  Grant's  written  notifica 
tion  and  who  had  read  it  in  Comstock's  presence,  ig 
noring  the  letter,  sent  word  back  by  Comstock  that 
he  wanted  to  see  Grant  at  the  meeting.  In  his  con 
troversial  letter  to  Johnson,  dated  January  28,  1868, 
Grant  says :  — 

"At  this  meeting,  after  opening  it  as  though  I  were 
a  member  of  the  Cabinet,  when  reminded  of  the 
notification  already  given  him  that  I  was  no  longer 
Secretary  of  War  ad  interim,  the  President  gave  a 


264  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

version  of  the  conversations  alluded  to  already.  In 
this  statement  it  was  asserted  that  in  both  conver 
sations  I  had  agreed  to  hold  on  to  the  office  of  Secre 
tary  of  War  until  displaced  by  the  courts,  or  resign,  so 
as  to  place  the  President  where  he  would  have  been 
had  I  never  accepted  the  office.  After  hearing  the 
President  through,  I  stated  our  conversations  sub 
stantially  as  given  in  this  letter.  ...  I  in  no  wise  ad 
mitted  the  correctness  of  the  President's  statement, 
though,  to  soften  the  evident  contradiction  my  state 
ment  gave,  I  said  (alluding  to  our  first  conversation 
on  the  subject)  the  President  might  have  understood 
me  the  way  he  said,  namely,  that  I  had  promised  to 
resign  if  I  did  not  resist  the  reinstatement.  I  made  no 
such  promise." 

Here  the  question  of  veracity  arises.  The  next 
morning  the  "National  Intelligencer,"  the  Adminis 
tration  organ,  had  an  editorial  purporting  to  give  an 
account  of  the  meeting,  leaving  Grant  in  the  position 
of  having  then  admitted  equivocation  and  a  breach 
of  faith.  Grant  called  with  Sherman  at  the  White 
House  to  protest  against  it.  At  a  meeting  next  day 
Johnson  read  the  editorial  to  the  members  of  the 
Cabinet  and  secured  from  each  of  them  a  con 
firmation  of  the  "Intelligencer"  report.  Still  later 
each  gave  the  President  a  written  statement  con 
firming  Johnson's  recollection  of  the  affair. 


A   QUESTION   OF   VERACITY  265 

Gideon  Welles,  who  had  long  included  Grant  in 
his  accumulating  collection  of  malevolents,  thus  de 
scribes  the  scene  in  his  "Diary":  — 

"The  President  was  calm  and  dignified,  though 
manifestly  disappointed  and  displeased.  General 
Grant  was  humble,  hesitating,  and  he  evidently  felt 
that  his  position  was  equivocal  and  not  to  his  credit. 
There  was,  I  think,  an  impression  on  the  minds  of 
all  present  (there  certainly  was  on  mine)  that  a  con 
sciousness  that  he  had  acted  with  duplicity  —  not 
been  faithful  and  true  to  the  man  who  had  confided 
in  and  trusted  him  —  oppressed  General  Grant.  His 
manner,  never  very  commanding,  was  almost  abject, 
and  he  left  the  room  with  less  respect,  I  apprehend, 
from  those  present  than  ever  before.  The  President, 
though  disturbed  and  not  wholly  able  to  conceal  his 
chagrin  from  those  familiar  with  him,  used  no  hard 
expressions  nor  committed  anything  approaching 
incivility,  yet  Grant  felt  the  few  words  put  to  him 
and  the  cold  and  surprised  disdain  of  the  President 
in  all  their  force." 

The  correspondence  between  Grant  and  Johnson 
growing  out  of  this  dispute  began  with  a  request  from 
Grant,  on  January  24,  that  the  President  give  him  in 
writing  an  order,  given  verbally  five  days  earlier,  to 
disregard  Stanton's  orders  as  Secretary  of  War.  "I 
am  compelled  to  ask  these  instructions  in  writing," 


266  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

he  says  in  the  letter  of  January  28  already  quoted, 
"in  consequence  of  the  many  and  gross  misrepre 
sentations  affecting  my  personal  honor,  circulated 
through  the  press  for  the  past  fortnight,  purporting 
to  come  from  the  President,  of  conversations  which 
occurred  either  with  the  President  privately  in  his 
office  or  in  Cabinet  meeting.  What  is  written  admits 
of  no  misunderstanding." 

So  far  as  Grant  was  concerned  the  correspondence 
ended  with  his  letter  of  February  3  in  response  to 
Johnson's  letter  of  January  31.  There  is  nothing  in 
American  history  before  or  since  to  compare  with 
this  challenge  of  the  President's  veracity  by  the 
General  of  the  Army. 

Badeau  says  that  Grant  first  wrote  a  reply  much 
milder  in  tone,  admitting  the  possibility  that  John 
son  might  have  honestly  misconstrued  his  position. 
But  Rawlins,  who  unlike  Grant  saw  the  political 
bearing  of  the  controversy,  said:  "This  will  not  do; 
it  is  not  enough";  and  drafted  a  paragraph  directly 
contradicting  and  defying  the  President.  This  may 
well  be  true;  at  any  rate,  the  letter  unequivocal  and 
personal  destroyed  all  possibility  of  further  relations 
and  made  Grant  at  once  the  head  of  the  Republican 
Party. 

Grant  in  his  letter  said  of  Johnson's  statement :  — 

"  I  find  it  but  a  reiteration,  only  somewhat  more 


A   QUESTION   OF   VERACITY  267 

in  detail,  of  the  'many  and  gross  misrepresenta 
tions'  .  .  .  which  my  statement  of  the  facts  set  forth 
in  my  letter  of  the  28th  ultimo  was  intended  to  cor 
rect;  and  I  here  reassert  the  correctness  of  my  state 
ments  in  that  letter;  anything  in  yours  in  reply  to  it 
to  the  contrary  notwithstanding.  I  confess  my  sur 
prise  that  the  Cabinet  officers  referred  to  should  so 
greatly  misapprehend  the  facts  in  the  matter  of  ad 
missions  alleged  to  have  been  made  by  me.  .  .  . 

"From  our  conversations,  and  my  written  protest 
of  August  1,  1867,  against  the  removal  of  Mr.  Stan- 
ton,  you  must  have  known  that  my  greatest  objec 
tion  to  his  removal  or  suspension  was  the  fear  that 
some  one  would  be  appointed  in  his  stead,  who  would, 
by  opposition  to  the  laws  relating  to  the  restoration 
of  the  Southern  States  to  their  proper  relations  to 
the  Government,  embarrass  the  Army  in  the  per 
formance  of  duties  especially  imposed  upon  it  by 
these  laws;  and  it  was  to  prevent  such  an  appoint 
ment  that  I  accepted  the  office  of  Secretary  of  War 
ad  interim,  and  not  for  the  purpose  of  enabling  you 
to  get  rid  of  Mr.  Stanton  by  my  withholding  it  from 
him  in  opposition  to  law,  or,  not  doing  so  myself, 
surrendering  it  to  one  who  would,  as  the  statement 
and  assumptions  in  your  communication  plainly  indi 
cate  was  sought.  .  .  .  The  course  you  would  have  it 
understood  I  had  agreed  to  pursue  was  in  violation  of 


268  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

law,  and  without  orders  from  you;  while  the  course 
I  did  pursue  and  which  I  never  doubted  you  fully 
understood,  was  in  accordance  with  law,  and  not 
in  disobedience  to  any  orders  of  my  superior. 

"And  now,  Mr.  President,  when  my  honor  as  a 
soldier  and  integrity  as  a  man  have  been  so  violently 
assailed,  pardon  me  for  saying  that  I  can  but  regard 
this  whole  matter,  from  the  beginning  to  the  end,  as 
an  attempt  to  involve  me  in  the  resistance  of  law,  for 
which  you  hesitated  to  assume  the  responsibility  in 
orders,  and  thus  to  destroy  my  character  before  the 
country.  I  am  in  a  measure  confirmed  in  this  con 
clusion  by  your  recent  orders  directing  me  to  disobey 
orders  from  the  Secretary  of  War,  — my  superior  and 
your  subordinate,  —  without  having  countermanded 
his  authority  to  issue  the  orders  I  am  to  disobey. " 

He  concluded  with  the  assurance  "  that  nothing 
less  than  a  vindication  of  my  personal  honor  and 
character"  could  have  induced  this  correspondence 
on  his  part. 

From  that  day  Grant  refused  to  have  any  dealings 
whatever  either  with  Johnson  or  with  members  of 
the  Cabinet  who,  in  confirming  Johnson's  version  of 
their  interview,  gave  the  sanction  of  their  names  to 
his  assault  on  Grant's  veracity. 

While  Congress  and  the  country  were  intent  on 
his  dispute  with  Grant,  Johnson  was  nursing  his 


THE   IMPEACHMENT  PROCEEDINGS     269 

determination  to  get  rid  of  Stanton.  He  refused  to 
recognize  him  as  Secretary.  He  directed  Grant  to 
ignore  Stanton's  orders.  He  tried  to  get  Sherman  to 
take  Stanton's  place;  but  Sherman  sturdily  refused. 
Johnson's  personal  objection  to  Stanton  was  only  one 
of  the  factors  in  his  determination.  He  was  obsessed 
with  the  idea  of  testing  the  Tenure  of  Office  Act  in 
the  courts  and  thus  gaining  a  tactical  advantage 
over  his  enemies  in  Congress.  On  February  21  he 
ordered  Lorenzo  Thomas,  the  Adjutant-General,  to 
take  possession  of  the  office  of  the  Secretary  of 
War,  and  gave  him  a  letter  which  Thomas  handed 
to  Stanton  removing  Stanton.  Stanton  held  on  to 
the  office  and  barred  Thomas  out.  The  defiance 
was  on. 

Then  it  was  that  Stevens  presented  his  report, 
signed  by  all  the  Republican  members  of  the  Recon 
struction  Committee,  impeaching  Andrew  Johnson 
of  high  crimes  and  misdemeanors  in  office.  Two  days 
later  the  House  adopted  the  resolution,  126  to  47, 
every  Republican  present  voting  "aye."  The  trial 
in  the  Senate  began  almost  immediately.  Johnson 
escaped  conviction  by  a  single  vote,  and,  strange  to 
say,  one  of  the  earliest  concessions  on  both  sides  was 
that,  so  far  as  Stanton's  removal  was  concerned,  he 
had  acted  entirely  within  the  law.  The  charges  on 
which  the  case  against  him  was  finally  made  were 


270  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Stevens's  charges  of  general  contumacy  which  the 
House  had  a  few  weeks  earlier  refused  to  regard  as 
justifying  impeachment.  * 

The  first  vote  of  the  Senate  on  the  articles  of  im 
peachment  was  on  May  16.  Then  a  recess  of  Con 
gress  was  taken  to  May  26,  when  the  final  vote  was 
taken.  During  the  recess  the  National  Union  Re 
publican  Convention  assembled  in  Chicago,  and  on 
May  20  Grant  was  nominated  for  President  by  a 
unanimous  vote,  with  Schuyler  Colfax,  Speaker  of 
the  House,  for  Vice-President.  Grant  had  never 
voted  but  once  in  his  life  and  then  for  Buchanan, 
"because  I  knew  Fremont."  If  he  had  qualified  in 
Illinois  in  1860,  he  would  have  voted  for  Douglas. 
But  his  antecedents  were  Republican.  That  was  the 
political  faith  of  his  father,  and  through  his  experi 
ence  with  Johnson  he  had  developed  a  partisan  bias 
which  led  him  even  to  the  point  of  hoping  for  John 
son's  conviction  on  the  articles  of  impeachment. 
There  was  no  incongruity,  therefore,  in  his  becom 
ing  the  Republican  candidate,  and  it  was  lucky  for 
the  party  that  they  could  command  the  service  of  the 
outstanding  figure  of  the  time.  The  elections  of  the 
fall  of  1867  had  shown  an  alarming  Democratic  tend 
ency.  With  any  other  candidate  than  Grant  in 
1868  the  Republicans  might  have  been  hard  pressed 
for  success,  assuming  that  the  Democrats  showed 


ELECTION  AS   PRESIDENT  271 

ordinary  political  sense  in  their  selection  of  a  can 
didate. 

Grant  received  the  notice  of  his  nomination  at 
Galena.  His  letter  of  acceptance  was  commendable 
for  brevity  and  good  taste.  He  undertook  to  discuss 
no  issues,  but  gave  assurances  that  he  would  try  to 
carry  out  the  purpose  of  the  party  which  had  named 
him,  and,  as  an  afterthought  it  is  said,  he  appended 
to  the  letter  the  sentence,  "Let  us  have  peace,"  an 
appeal  which  went  to  the  people's  heart  and  proved 
to  be  the  rallying  cry  of  the  campaign.  But  in  spite 
of  everything  the  result  was  by  no  means  a  fore 
gone  conclusion.  Seymour  and  Blair,  the  Democra 
tic  candidates,  carried  New  York,  New  Jersey,  and 
Oregon  among  the  Northern  States.  Pennsylvania, 
Ohio,  and  Indiana  went  Republican  by  unexpectedly 
close  margins.  Grant  carried  twenty-six  States,  it  is 
true,  with  214  electoral  votes,  and  Seymour  only 
eight  States  with  80  electoral  votes,  but  the  popular 
majority  was  much  smaller  than  these  figures  would 
indicate.  If  it  had  not  been  for  the  negro  vote  in  the 
South,  which  was  still  unsuppressed  and  which  pre 
vented  that  section  from  being  solidly  Democratic, 
as  it  afterwards  became,  Seymour  would  have  been 
elected. 

From  the  day  of  his  election  till  he  went  back  to 
Washington  for  his  inauguration,  Grant  remained  in 


272  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

intellectual  seclusion.  Although  he  spent  much  time 
in  Washington,  few  men  of  standing  in  his  party  saw 
him,  and  with  these  few  he  was  strangely  reticent. 
As  in  the  Army  he  had  never  held  a  council  of  war,  so 
now  he  asked  no  one's  advice  about  his  Cabinet  or  his 
inaugural  address.  He  made  no  suggestions  to  Re 
publican  leaders  in  Congress  as  to  measures  which 
he  might  like  to  see  them  enact  pending  his  induction 
into  office. 

Stevens  had  died  in  the  summer  of  1868,  and  his 
mantle  of  leadership  had  been  grabbed  by  the  brag 
gart  Butler,  who  kept  the  House  torn  with  dissen 
sion  and  noisy  with  turmoil  in  his  determination  to 
force  through  laws  still  further  to  harass  the  stricken 
South.  In  order  to  insure  to  Republican  "carpet 
baggers"  and  "scalawags"  possession  of  the  local 
offices  in  the  unreconstructed  States,  a  resolution 
was  framed  ordering  the  district  commander  to  re 
move  all  civil  officers  who  could  not  take  the  iron 
clad  oath  and  appoint  in  their  places  men  who  could 
subscribe  to  it,  with  a  proviso  that  those  whose 
disabilities  had  been  removed  by  Congress  might 
also  be  eligible  to  office.  The  resolution  was  passed 
unanimously  in  both  houses  without  debate.  At  the 
time  of  its  adoption  it  benefited  only  carpet-baggers 
and  ex-Confederate  "scalawags"  who  had  become 
Republicans.  To  put  beyond  the  reach  of  legislative 


ELECTION   AS   PRESIDENT  273 

recall  the  negro's  right  to  vote,  the  Fifteenth  Amend 
ment  of  the  Constitution  was  framed,  providing  that 
"  The  right  of  citizens  of  the  United  States  to  vote 
shall  not  be  denied  or  abridged  by  the  United  States 
or  by  any  State  on  account  of  race,  color,  or  previ 
ous  condition  of  servitude." 

Thus  Grant,  in  entering  upon  the  Presidency,  — 
the  first  strictly  civil  office  he  had  ever  held,  —  found 
himself  confronted  by  political  conditions  in  the 
South  which  might  have  staggered  a  statesman  of 
lifelong  experience  and  for  which  he  was  in  no  way 
responsible,  while  domestic  questions  affecting  the  na 
tion's  financial  credit  and  foreign  problems  affecting 
its  standing  among  the  nations  of  the  world  pressed 
for  consideration.  Those  who  criticize  the  course  of 
his  Administration  and  condemn  him  for  his  choice 
of  advisers  might  first  point  out  what  statesman  of 
the  day  would  have  done  better  in  his  place  and  what 
advisers  would  have  aided  him  to  more  beneficent 
results. 


CHAPTER  XXX 
PRESIDENT  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 

WHEN  Grant  became  President,  it  seemed  for  the 
moment  as  though  a  second  "era  of  good  feeling" 
were  at  hand.  Democrats  as  well  as  Republicans 
looked  on  him  as  their  chosen  leader.  There  was  only 
one  unpleasant  feature  about  his  assumption  of 
office.  Grant  refused  to  ride  in  the  same  carriage 
with  Johnson  from  the  White  House  to  the  Capitol  on 
inauguration  day.  He  could  not  forget  that  Johnson 
had  called  his  truthfulness  in  question. 

Grant's  first  inaugural  was  written  entirely  by 
himself;  no  one  saw  a  draft  of  it  until  the  day  of  its 
delivery.  As  the  4th  of  March  approached  without 
an  intimation  of  what  Grant  had  in  mind,  A.  R. 
Corbin  —  a  prospective  brother-in-law  who  was  gain 
ing  a  livelihood  on  the  fringe  of  Wall  Street  — 
handed  the  President  a  complete  draft  of  an  inau 
gural.  But,  without  glancing  at  the  contents,  Grant 
handed  the  document  to  Badeau,  telling  him  to  lock 
it  up  in  a  desk,  keep  the  key,  and  let  no  one  look  at 
it  until  after  the  4th  of  March. 

The  inaugural  was  brief,  —  only  twelve  hundred 
words,  —  yet  in  spite  of  its  brevity  it  contained  sen- 


PRESIDENT   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES     275 

tences  which  stuck  in  the  mind  and  some  of  which 
have  since  become  embedded  in  our  common  speech : 
"  The  responsibilities  of  the  position  I  feel,  but  accept 
them  without  fear.  The  office  has  come  to  me  un 
sought;  I  commence  its  duties  untrammeled."  "  All 
laws  will  be  faithfully  executed,  whether  they  meet 
my  approval  or  not.  I  shall  on  all  subjects  have  a 
policy  to  recommend,  but  none  to  enforce  against 
the  will  of  the  people.  Laws  are  to  govern  all  alike  — 
those  opposed  as  well  as  those  who  favor  them.  I 
know  no  method  to  repeal  bad  or  obnoxious  laws  so 
effective  as  their  stringent  execution." 

In  spite  of  some  criticism  of  certain  seemingly  self- 
sufficient  passages,  the  inaugural  took  well;  but  when 
the  new  Cabinet  was  announced,  Republican  poli 
ticians  gasped  with  dismay.  Only  two  of  the  names 
had  ever  been  guessed  and  some  were  not  suspected 
by  the  nominees  themselves  until  they  appeared  in 
the  list.  Elihu  B.  Washburne,  of  Illinois,  was  named 
Secretary  of  State;  it  had  been  assumed  that  Grant 
would  recognize  in  some  way  the  services  of  his  earli 
est  influential  friend,  but  this  particular  distinction 
had  not  been  foreseen.  When  it  appeared  in  a  few 
days  that  the  appointment  was  intended  as  a  per 
sonal  compliment,  and  that  Washburne  was  to  hold 
the  position  just  long  enough  to  enjoy  the  title,  the 
criticism  was  general.  To  one  who  complained  that 


276  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

the  occupant  of  the  position  of  Secretary  of  State 
ought  to  be  able  to  speak  the  French  language  cor 
rectly,  the  reply  was  made,  "  He  ought  at  least  to  be 
able  to  speak  his  own."  But  Washburne's  creditable 
record  as  Minister  to  France,  during  the  Franco- 
Prussian  War  and  during  the  trying  days  of  the  Com 
mune,  saved  his  reputation  in  the  end. 

A.  T.  Stewart  was  named  Secretary  of  the  Treas 
ury.  The  Senate  promptly  confirmed  his  nomina 
tion,  and  until  somebody  recalled  a  long-buried  law, 
enacted  early  in  the  century,  providing  that  this 
particular  office  should  not  be  filled  by  any  man  en 
gaged  in  commerce,  no  one  in  Washington  realized 
that  the  great  merchant  and  importer  was  ineligible 
to  the  place.  Grant,  with  sublime  indifference  to 
technicalities,  asked  the  Senate  to  repeal  the  law  and 
John  Sherman,  himself  to  be  Secretary  of  the  Treas 
ury  later,  moved  the  repeal;  but  owing  to  Sumner's 
opposition  the  motion  was  defeated.  Grant  was  no 
more  to  blame  for  making  the  nomination  than  the 
Senate  for  confirming  it.  They  might  have  been  ex 
pected  to  be 'familiar  with  the  law.  Sumner  in  his 
subsequent  attacks  on  Grant  denounced  him  for  try 
ing  to  upset  a  statute  which  "  had  stood  unquestioned 
until  it  had  acquired  the  character  of  fundamental 
law,"  yet  Sumner  himself  must  have  been  ignorant 
of  this  "fundamental  law"  when  he  first  aquiesced  in 


PRESIDENT   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES    277 

Stewart's  confirmation.  George  S.  Boutwell,  a  mem 
ber  of  the  House  from  Massachusetts,  once  a  business 
man  in  a  small  way,  Commissioner  of  Internal  Rev 
enue  during  the  Civil  War,  was  named  in  place  of 
Stewart  —  an  unexceptionable  appointment. 

E.  Rockwood  Hoar,  of  Massachusetts,  was  made 
Attorney-General;  he  was  a  learned  lawyer  of  distin 
guished  antecedents  and  high  character,  a  member 
of  the  House,  a  friend  of  Sumner,  a  scholar  of  pungent 
wit  and  exalted  ideals  of  public  duty.  He  gained  the 
ill-will  of  certain  Republican  Senators  because  of  his 
austerity  in  rebuking  their  demands  for  the  appoint 
ment  of  judges,  district  attorneys,  and  United  States 
marshals  in  the  South  whom  he  believed  to  be  unfit, 
and  when  Grant  subsequently  nominated  him  to  fill 
a  vacancy  on  the  Supreme  Bench  caused  by  Stanton's 
death,  these  Senators,  urged  on  by  Butler  who  hated 
him,  brought  about  the  rejection  of  the  nomination. 
Grant  stood  squarely  with  Hoar  in  his  effort  to  pre 
serve  the  quality  of  the  Federal  Bench.  The  story  of 
his  final  withdrawal  from  the  Cabinet  is  an  interesting 
chapter  in  the  history  of  the  times. 

General  Schofield,  whom  Johnson  had  made  Sec 
retary  of  War  after  Stanton's  retirement,  was  re 
quested  by  Grant  to  retain  his  place  for  a  while.  A 
personal  compliment  this.  Schofield  was  succeeded  in 
a  few  weeks  by  Rawlins  whom  Grant  needed  always 


278  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

near  his  side.  No  one  could  fairly  object  to  his 
selection.  Adolph  E.  Borie  was  named  for  Secre 
tary  of  the  Navy.  He  was  a  wealthy  and  philan 
thropic  Philadelphian  whom  no  one  outside  Phila 
delphia  had  ever  heard  of.  He  was  an  invalid  and  had 
no  thought  of  the  Cabinet  until  he  saw  that  he  had 
been  nominated.  He  resigned  as  soon  as  he  could 
gracefully  retire,  and  was  succeeded  by  George  M. 
Robeson,  of  New  Jersey,  then  a  young  lawyer  of 
striking  ability,  who  was  reputed  at  the  time  to  have 
been  recommended  by  Borie  for  the  succession.  The 
Secretary  of  the  Interior  was  Jacob  D.  Cox,  Gov 
ernor  of  Ohio,  who  not  only  had  a  fine  record  as  brig 
adier-general  in  the  Civil  War,  especially  at  Franklin 
and  Antietam,  but  who  was  a  man  of  education  and 
wide  reading,  a  forceful  and  interesting  writer  and  a 
Republican  of  conservative  tendencies.  When  run 
ning  for  Governor  of  Ohio  he  had  announced  himself 
boldly  as  opposed  to  negro  suffrage.  The  Postmaster- 
General  was  John  A.  J.  Creswell,  of  Maryland,  for  a 
short  time  a  member  of  the  House  and  Senate,  like 
some  others  in  the  Cabinet  hardly  known  outside  his 
own  community. 

For  eight  years  Grant  was  President.  His  two  ad 
ministrations  were  marked  by  extraordinary  achieve 
ment  both  in  the  domestic  and  in  the  foreign  field. 
True,  he  was  the  target  of  abuse  and  criticism;  no 


PRESIDENT   OF   THE  UNITED   STATES     279 

President  in  the  long  list,  with  the  possible  exception 
of  Johnson,  has  been  more  bitterly  assailed,  and  he 
was  vulnerable  at  many  points.  He  was  a  soldier  with 
a  limited  experience  in  dealing  with  men  of  affairs 
and  only  a  superficial  acquaintance  with  politics; 
with  no  great  knowledge  of  history,  or  literature,  and 
innocent  of  the  science  of  government;  yet  William 
Tecumseh  Sherman,  in  one  of  his  flashes  of  political 
insight,  came  very  near  the  mark  when  he  wrote  in 
the  summer  of  1868:  "My  own  opinion  is  that,  con 
sidering  the  state  of  the  country,  Grant  will  make 
the  best  President  we  can  get.  What  we  want  in  na 
tional  politics  is  quiet,  harmony,  and  stability,  and 
these  are  more  likely  with  Grant  than  any  politician 
I  know  of." 

Grant  made  serious  mistakes;  but  almost  without 
exception  they  were  errors  arising  from  childlike  trust 
and  unfortunate  asssociations.  They  seldom  affected 
adversely  measures  of  broad  public  policy.  When  we 
recall  the  great  accomplishments  of  his  administra 
tions,  —  the  establishment  of  the  principle  of  inter 
national  arbitration  through  the  Treaty  of  Washing 
ton  and  the  adjudication  of  the  Alabama  claims  by 
the  Geneva  Tribunal;  the  upholding  of  American 
dignity  and  the  assertion  of  American  rights  in  the 
matter  of  the  Virginius  and  the  handling  of  the  Cu 
ban  complications ;  the  rehabilitation  of  the  national 


280  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

credit,  and  the  maintenance  of  the  national  honor, 
the  inauguration  of  a  consistent  and  merciful  policy 
toward  the  Indians;  the  recognition  of  the  principle 
of  civil  service  reform;  and  the  restoration  of  a  sem 
blance  of  order  in  the  South,  —  we  are  tempted  to 
subordinate,  though  we  cannot  honestly  ignore,  the 
personal  differences  which  marred  the  period  of  his 
service  and  the  public  scandal  attaching  to  some  of 
those  who,  in  the  shelter  of  his  friendship  and  of  offices 
bestowed  upon  them  through  his  favor,  betrayed  his 
trust.  It  was  a  time  of  universal  prodigality  and  ex 
travagance,  when  speculation  flourished  and  the  na 
tion's  moral  fiber  had  been  coarsened  by  the  excesses 
of  war.  It  was  not  strange  that  the  widespread  taint 
invaded  public  place.  It  would  have  been  more 
strange  if  it  had  not. 

Grant's  first  choice  for  Secretary  of  State  had  been 
James  F.  Wilson,  of  Iowa.  Wilson  would  have  been 
a  creditable  selection,  although  foreign  affairs  were 
not  directly  in  his  line,  for  he  was  able,  industrious, 
and  high-minded.  He  first  accepted  the  appoint 
ment,  but  at  Grant's  request  consented  that  Wash- 
burne  should  hold  the  place  a  little  while,  so  that 
Washburne  might  go  to  Paris  with  enhanced  prestige. 
The  understanding  was  that  Washburne's  tenure 
should  be  nominal,  that  he  should  not  initiate  a 
policy  or  make  appointments,  but  he  did  both,  and 


PRESIDENT   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES     281 

Wilson,  when  he  found  what  had  been  done,  refused 
to  take  the  place. 

As  a  substitute  for  Wilson,  Grant  hit  upon  Hamil 
ton  Fish  and  a  day  or  two  after  inauguration  sent 
General  Babcock,  his  military  aide,  over  to  New 
York  to  offer  Fish  the  place.  Fish  had  wealth,  social 
and  family  position.  He  was  about  sixty  years  old; 
had  been  governor;  had  served  in  the  Legislature,  in 
the  National  House  of  Representatives,  and  for  one 
term  in  the  United  States  Senate,  where  he  had  gained 
Sumner's  friendship;  but  he  had  not  been  in  public 
life  since  he  quit  the  Senate  in  1857;  had  made  no 
great  mark  in  any  of  the  offices  he  had  held,  and  was 
not  widely  known.  Grant  had  met  him  occasionally 
in  New  York,  but  was  not  intimately  acquainted  with 
him. 

Fish  did  not  care  for  the  position  of  Secretary  of 
State.  He  was  Grant's  second  choice  and  not  long 
under  consideration;  yet  he  was  to  preside  over  the 
State  Department  for  a  longer  period  than  any  other 
Secretary  in  the  history  of  the  Government,  except 
Seward,  and  to  leave  a  record  of  distinguished 
achievement  commensurate  with  his  length  of  serv 
ice.  Seward  is  quoted  by  John  Bigelow,  who  visited 
him  at  Auburn  shortly  after  the  appointment,  as 
saying  that  Grant  had  no  idea  of  a  foreign  policy 
except  brute  force.  That  he  (Seward)  had  told  them 


282  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

at  Washington  that  there  were  but  three  men  fit  to 
be  Secretary  of  State  that  he  knew;  they  were, 
Sumner,  Charles  Francis  Adams,  and  himself;  that 
no  one  but  himself  could  make  an  analysis  of  the 
Alabama  correspondence  in  less  than  a  year,  and  that 
it  would  take  four  months  for  him  to  do  it.  "  Fish  will 
refer  everything  to  the  Attorney-General.  He  will 
do  nothing  himself;  he  cannot.  Sumner  wished  and 
had  a  right  to  have  been  asked  into  the  Cabinet, 
though  he  would  not  have  accepted.  It  was  neither 
courteous  nor  wise  in  Grant  to  have  neglected  this 
attention." 

"  The  Cabinet  is  not  strong,  but  it  is  respectable," 
wrote  Bigelow  to  Huntington,  March  16,  1869. 
"Whether  it  lasts  or  goes  to  pieces  depends  upon 
Grant's  purpose  in  selecting  it.  If  he  has  a  policy 
and  wanted  men  merely  for  instruments  to  put  it  into 
operation,  it  is  admirably  chosen.  If  he  wants  re 
sponsible  ministers  he  has  not  got  them.  Hamilton 
Fish  is  my  neighbor  in  the  country  —  an  amiable, 
but  heavy  man,  who  at  the  bar  ranked  as  a  moderate 
attorney,  but  whose  name  I  suspect  does  not  appear 
in  the  books  of  reports  once.  .  .  .  Mr.  Washburne  is 
another  illustration  of  Grant's  fidelity  to  his  friends. 
In  company  with  many  of  his  predecessors  he  [Wash 
burne]  will  have  one  advantage  over  the  people  he  is 
to  live  among — he  will  learn  a  great  deal  more  from 


PRESIDENT   OF   THE   UNITED   STATES     283 

them  than  they  are  likely  to  learn  from  him.  .  .  . 
Grant  has  lost  prestige  enormously  in  the  country." 

"He  [Grant]  seems  to  have  no  comprehension  of 
the  nature  of  political  forces,"  writes  Bigelow  three 
weeks  later.  "His  Cabinet  are  merely  staff  officers, 
selected  apparently  out  of  motives  of  gratitude  or  for 
pecuniary  favors  received  from  them.  His  relatives 
and  old  friends  were  among  the  first  provided  for.  .  .  . 
No  President  before  was  ever  got  in  the  family  way  so 
soon  after  inauguration.  By  his  secretiveness  in  re 
gard  to  his  choice  of  a  Cabinet  and  by  his  taking 
men  unknown  to  his  party  or  to  any  party,  he 
wounded  the  pride  of  Congress  incurably.  ..." 

Carl  Schurz  tells  in  his  "Reminiscences"  an  an 
ecdote  heard  in  the  cloak-room  of  the  Senate  at  this 
time.  One  of  the  best  lawyers  in  the  Senate  heard  a 
rumor  that  President  Grant  was  about  to  remove  a 
federal  judge  in  one  of  the  Territories,  a  lawyer  of 
excellent  ability  and  uncommon  fitness  for  the  bench. 
The  Senator  remonstrated  and  Grant  admitted  that 
as. far  as  he  knew  there  was  no  allegation  of  the  un- 
fitness  of  the  judge;  "but,"  he  added,  "the  Governor 
of  the  Territory  writes  me  that  he  cannot  get  along 
with  that  judge  at  all,  and  is  very  anxious  to  be  rid  of 
him;  and  I  think  the  Governor  is  entitled  to  have 
control  of  his  staff."  So  much  for  contemporary 
criticism! 


CHAPTER  XXXI 
PERSONAL  EQUATIONS 

"I  LIKE  Grant,"  wrote  James  Russell  Lowell  after  a 
visit  to  Washington  in  March,  1870,  "  and  was  struck 
with  the  pathos  of  his  face;  a  puzzled  pathos,  as  of  a 
man  with  a  problem  before  him  of  which  he  does  not 
understand  the  terms."1 

Grant  had  then  been  President  a  year  —  a  year 
crowded  with  pressing  problems,  some  of  which  were 
complicated,  it  is  true,  but  all  of  which  might  almost 
be  stated  in  terms  of  Grant  himself,  and  Sumner,  with 
Fish  and  Motley  as  ever-present  factors.  If  in  the 
early  weeks  of  the  Administration  there  had  been  at 
hand  a  disinterested  friend  endowed  with  the  ability 
to  handle  men  of  widely  differing  tastes  and  ante 
cedents,  the  personal  misunderstanding  between 
the  President  and  the  leader  of  the  Senate  might 
never  have  developed  into  a  feud  endangering  the 
success  of  the  Administration  and  embittering  the 
lives  of  all  concerned;  for  Grant  and  Sumner  had 
common  aspirations,  although  their  methods  of 
approach  were  so  unlike.  But  no  such  friend  appeared 
to  put  his  finger  on  the  point  of  sympathetic  contact 
1  Letter  to  Leslie  Stephen,  March  25,  1870. 


PERSONAL   EQUATIONS  285 

through  which  harmonious  relations  could  have  been 
maintained. 

It  might  be  thought  that  Fish,  by  virtue  of  his  place 
and  of  his  earlier  relations  with  Sumner  in  the  Senate, 
could  at  least  have  been  of  service  as  a  go-between; 
but  whatever  may  have  been  his  inclination,  he  was 
not  the  man  to  undertake  the  task.  Sumner,  while 
glad  to  have  him  as  a  friend,  had  never  looked  upon 
him  as  an  .intellectual  equal,  and  held  him  somewhat 
lightly  as  a  figure  in  affairs.  While  Fish,  at  first  re 
garding  Sumner  as  his  mentor,  came  slowly  to  resent 
the  other's  condescensions,  and  true  to  his  Dutch 
ancestry,  once  having  set  his  mind  against  his  old 
associate,  aligned  himself  immovably  with  his  official 
chief,  thus  helping  to  accentuate  the  feud.  Besides, 
he  early  came  to  formulate  a  sane,  far-seeing  diplo 
matic  programme  of  his  own. 

Sumner  had  a  low  opinion  of  Grant's  political 
sagacity.  He  never  thought  Grant  should  have  been 
made  President  as  a  reward  for  military  success, 
took  no  part  in  his  nomination,  and  acquiesced  re 
luctantly  when  he  saw  that  it  was  bound  to  come. 
There  was  nothing  strange  in  this.  Sumner  was  not 
alone  in  questioning  the  wisdom  of  Grant's  selection, 
and  Grant  was  not  the  only  President  about  whose 
fitness  he  had  been  in  doubt.  He  never  quite  ap 
proved  of  Lincoln  or  understood  him.  "Mr.  Lincoln 


286  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

was  a  constant  puzzle  to  him,"  says  Carl  Schurz.  "  He 
frequently  told  me  of  profound  and  wise  things  Mr. 
Lincoln  had  said,  and  then  again  of  other  sayings 
which  were  unintelligible  to  him,  and  seemed  to  him 
inconsistent  with  a  serious  appreciation  of  the  task 
before  us.  Being  entirely  devoid  of  the  sense  of 
humor  himself,  Mr.  Sumner  frequently  —  I  might 
almost  say  always  —  failed  to  see  the  point  of  the 
quaint  anecdotes  or  illustrations  with  which  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  fond  of  elucidating  his  arguments,  as 
with  a  flashlight.  .  .  .  Many  a  time  I  saw  Sumner 
restlessly  pacing  up  and  down  in  his  room  and  ex 
claiming  with  uplifted  hands :  '  I  pray  that  the  Pres 
ident  may  be  right  in  delaying.  But  I  am  afraid,  I 
am  almost  sure  he  is  not.  I  trust  his  fidelity  but  I 
cannot  understand  him.'"  1 

As  for  Grant,  he  had  no  skill  in  handling  men  of 
Sumner's  type,  differing  therein  from  Lincoln,  who 
had  a  way  of  dropping  in  at  Sumner's  house  to  drink 
a  cup  of  the  inimitable  tea,  in  brewing  which  the 
Massachusetts  statesman  took  peculiar  pride,  and 
after  sipping  it  like  an  old  gossip  purring  the  real 
object  of  his  visit  into  Sumner's  ear.  Nor  would 
Grant  have  done  as  Lincoln  did  after  his  second  in 
auguration,  when  Sumner's  hostility  to  the  Louisiana 
policy  threatened  a  fatal  break.  "  Dear  Mr.  Sum- 
1  The  Reminiscences  of  Carl  Schurz,  vol.  n,  pp.  312-14. 


PERSONAL   EQUATIONS  287 

ner,"  Lincoln  wrote,  "  unless  you  send  me  word  to 
the  contrary  I  shall  this  evening  call  with  my  car 
riage  at  your  house  to  take  you  to  the  Inauguration 
Ball";  and  at  the  Ball  Lincoln  walked  in  withSum- 
ner  arm  in  arm  and  kept  him  by  his  side. 

Sumner  thought  in  1864  that  Lincoln  should  give 
way  to  a  more  forceful  candidate,  just  as  in  1868  he 
thoiight  a  recognized  Republican  of  ripe  political  ex 
perience  would  have  been  better  qualified  than  Grant 
to  meet  the  problems  of  the  time.  It  may  be  he  was 
right.  The  trouble  would  have  been  to  find  the  man. 

When  Grant  took  office  Sumner  was  the  unchal 
lenged  chieftain  of  the  Senate.  He  had  been  chair 
man  of  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations  ever 
since  Seward  entered  Lincoln's  Cabinet,  and,  as 
Chase  had  also  gone,  no  one  was  left  to  rival  him  in 
seniority  or  reputation.  All  things  conspired  to  give 
him  prominence  and  swell  his  own  conception  of  his 
place  in  national  affairs.  He  was  well  born  and  highly 
educated  and  had  been  trained  almost  from  boyhood 
for  a  political  career.  He  had  read  every  serious  book 
which  had  been  written  on  the  science  of  government, 
knew  the  best  writings  of  all  times  and  countries,  and 
had  stored  in  a  capacious  memory  a  prodigious  mass 
of  information  about  many  things,  with  which  he  tire- 
somely  embellished  his  speeches  in  the  Senate  and  his 
daily  talk.  He  was  one  of  the  few  Americans  of  his 


288  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

day  who  had  familiar  correspondence  with  scholars, 
writers,  and  public  men  abroad.  Politically  invinci 
ble  at  home  in  Massachusetts,  he  was  regarded  else 
where  as  a  hero  and  the  champion  of  liberty,  for  his 
fame  as  an  uncompromising  advocate  of  the  rights  of 
men  ran  back  to  the  fermenting  time  of  1848. 

Mr.  Lodge  in  his  "Early  Memories"  has  given 
us  a  delightful  portrait  of  Sumner.  He  speaks  of  his 
wide  learning,  of  his  power  of  devouring  books  with 
extraordinary  rapidity,  and  the  gift  of  remembering 
everything.  "  Sumner,"  he  says,  "  was  by  nature  a 
dreamer,  a  man  of  meditation,  a  man  of  books,  and  a 
lover  of  learning.  By  the  circumstances  of  his  time 
and  by  the  hand  of  fate  he  was  projected  into  a  ca 
reer  of  intense  action  and  fierce  struggle.  There  he 
played  a  great  part,  but  his  nature  was  not  changed. 
He  still  remained  at  bottom  a  dreamer  and  a  man 
of  books.  ...  A  statesman  in  the  largest  sense, 
although  not  a  legislator  who  drafted  laws  and  at 
tended  to  legislative  details  ...  he  cared  nothing 
for  politics  in  the  ordinary  acceptation  of  the  word. 
.  .  .  He  was  a  most  imposing  figure.  Tall,  large,  not 
regularly  handsome  in  features,  but  with  a  noble  head 
and  a  fine  intellectual  face.  No  one  could  look  upon 
him  and  fail  to  be  struck  and  attracted  by  his  looks 
and  presence.  To  all  this  was  added  that  rarest  of 
gifts,  a  very  fine  voice,  deep  and  rich  with  varied 


PERSONAL   EQUATIONS  289 

tones  and  always  a  delight  to  the  ear.  .  .  .  Coupled 
with  his  deficiency  in  a  sense  of  humor,  and  akin  to  it, 
was  a  curious  simplicity  of  nature.  .  .  .  He  was  any 
thing  but  conceited,  but  he  had  vanity  ...  in  a 
marked  degree.  ...  It  was  not  the  vanity  which 
offends,  for  it  was  too  frank,  too  obvious,  too  inno 
cent  to  give  offense,  but  it  made  him  an  easy  prey  to 
those  who  wished  to  profit  by  it.  .  .  .  No  man  had 
better  manners  in  daily  life,  manners  at  once  kindly, 
stately,  and  dignified,  and  he  could  do  a  courteous 
action  in  a  most  graceful  way." 

Schurz  said  that  in  himself  Sumner  felt  the  whole 
dignity  of  the  Republic;  in  sporting  language,  "he 
had  a  good  eye  for  country,  but  no  scent  for  a  trail." 

A  marked  contrast,  this,  to  Grant,  small  in  stature, 
slouchy  in  dress  and  bearing,  taciturn  in  public,  with 
out  ostentation  or  vanity,  meagerly  read  and  hardly 
educated  beyond  West  Point  necessities,  careless  of 
refinements,  unfamiliar  with  the  graces  of  society, 
his  clothing  reeking  always  with  the  stale  odor  of 
tobacco,  ill  at  ease  with  men  of  culture,  yet  simple 
and  direct  in  speech  and  in  his  manner  of  approach 
ing  other  men. 

"  As  different  in  their  mental  attributes  as  in  their 
physical  appearance,"  says  Charles  Francis  Adams.1 
"  While  Mr.  Sumner  was,  intellectually,  morally,  and 
1  Before  and  after  the  Treaty  of  Washington,  p.  7,5. 


290  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

physically,  much  the  finer  and  more  imposing  human 
product,  Grant  had  counterbalancing  qualities  which 
made  him,  in  certain  fields,  the  more  formidable  op 
ponent.  With  immense  will,  he  was  taciturn;  Sum- 
ner,  on  the  contrary,  in  no  way  deficient  in  will,  was 
a  man  of  many  words,  a  rhetorician.  In  action  and 
among  men  Grant's  self-control  was  perfect,  amount 
ing  to  complete  apparent  imperturbability.  Unas 
suming,  singularly  devoid  of  self-consciousness,  in 
presence  of  an  emergency  his  blood  never  seemed  to 
quicken,  his  face  became  only  the  more  set,  tenacity 
personified;  whereas  Sumner,  when  morally  excited, 
the  rush  of  his  words,  his  deep,  tremulous  utterance, 
and  the  light  in  his  eye,  did  not  impart  conviction  or 
inspire  respect.  Doubts  would  suggest  themselves  to 
the  unsympathetic,  or  only  partially  sympathetic, 
listener  whether  the  man  was  of  altogether  balanced 
mind.  .  .  .  Quite  unconsciously  on  his  part  he  as 
sumed  an  attitude  of  moral  superiority  and  intellec 
tual  certainty,  in  no  way  compatible  with  a  proper 
appreciation  of  the  equality  of  others.  In  the  mind 
of  a  man  like  Grant,  these  peculiarities  excited  ob 
stinacy,  anger,  and  contempt." 

Charles  Eliot  Norton  has  preserved  one  of  Grant's 
rare  gleams  of  humor,  when  he  replied  to  somebody 
who  told  him  Sumner  had  no  faith  in  the  Bible: 
"  Well:  he  did  n't  write  it." 


PERSONAL   EQUATIONS  291 

Motley  was  Sumner's  personal  friend;  a  member  of 
the  same  literary  and  social  group  in  Boston,1  — 
a  group  embracing  Longfellow,  Lowell,  Emerson, 
Hawthorne,  Agassiz,  Andrew,  Dana,  and  Holmes;  of 
distinguished  achievement  as  the  historian  of  the 
Dutch  Republic,  of  ripe  culture  and  great  personal 
charm,  of  cosmopolitan  experience,  familiar  with  the 
universities  and  libraries  of  Europe,  and  of  some  dip 
lomatic  experience  by  reason  of  his  service  as  Minister 
to  Austria  under  the  Lincoln  and  Johnson  Admin 
istrations,  which  came  to  a  distressing  end  through 
Seward's  clumsy  handling  of  an  unknown  critic's 
abusive  letter  and  his  own  excessive  sensitiveness. 
Sumner  and  his  other  friends  pressed  Grant  to  make 
him  Minister  to  England  partly  as  a  balm  for  injured 
pride.  But  behind  it  also  was  Sumner's  unexpressed 
assumption  that  through  his  position  in  the  Senate 
he  was  to  be  responsible  for  the  conduct  of  our  for 
eign  relations  during  the  incumbency  of  an  ignorant 
Executive  and  an  inexperienced  Secretary  of  State. 

With  our  grievances  against  Great  Britain  press 
ing  for  a  settlement,  he  wanted  to  have  at  London  a 
representative  in  whom  he  could  place  perfect  trust, 
and  from  his  point  of  view  Motley  was  the  ideal 
man. 

But  in  other  ways  the  choice  was  not  by  any  means 

1  The  Saturday  Club. 


292  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

the  best  which  could  be  made.  With  all  his  personal 
charm  and  social  distinction,  Motley  was  lacking  in 
the  tact  and  diplomatic  skill  which  were  required  in 
an  effective  American  representative  in  London  at 
that  time.  In  fact,  he  was  not  by  nature  adapted  to 
diplomacy  at  all,  although  no  finer  type  of  American 
citizenship  could  have  been  chosen  to  stand  as  the 
enbodiment  of  our  best  ideals  in  other  lands,  and  it  is 
not  surprising  that  shortly  Grant  and  Fish  should 
have  found  it  necessary  to  take  the  negotiations  with 
the  British  Government  into  their  own  hands,  ex 
cluding  him  entirely  from  the  ultimate  adjustment.1 
To  understand  all  this  and  how  the  Administra 
tion's  attitude  toward  Cuba  and  San  Domingo  helped 
to  emphasize  the  split,  one  must  first  understand  a 
clash  of  personalities,  which  came  near  to  wrecking 
Grant's  Administration  at  the  beginning,  and  the 
effects  of  which  were  felt  long  after  Sumner's  death. 

1  E.  L.  Godkin,  writing  from  London,  on  April  15,  1869,  said: 
"Motley's  appointment  is  a  good  one  from  the  social  point  of 
view,  bad,  I  think,  in  every  other  way.  I  do  not  think  he  has  the 
necessary  mental  furniture  for  the  discussion  of  the  questions  now 
pending  between  England  and  America;  and  he  is  a  little  too 
ardent.  His  lectures  here  have  been  very  disappointing,  common 
place  rhetorics  without  any  thought.  .  .  ." 


CHAPTER  XXXII 
ARBITRATION  WITH  GREAT  BRITAIN 

ON  the  very  threshold  of  his  Administration  Grant 
found  confronting  him  the  problem  of  our  grievances 
against  Great  Britain  which  had  been  accumulating 
ever  since  her  recognition  of  Confederate  belligerency 
in  the  first  year  of  the  Civil  War.  Upon  the  heels 
of  recognition  —  a  perfectly  legitimate  proceeding, 
although  resented  bitterly  throughout  the  North  — 
had  come  the  devastating  cruises  of  the  Alabama, 
Florida,  and  Shenandoah,  fitted  out  in  British  yards, 
under  the  eyes  of  British  functionaries,  and  manned 
with  Confederate  naval  officers  with  the  express  de 
sign  of  preying  on  our  foreign  commerce. 

Charles  Francis  Adams,  our  Minister  at  London, 
had  demanded  reparation  for  damage  caused  by  the 
British-built  Confederate  cruisers,  but  the  British 
Government  toward  the  end  of  1865  had  some 
what  curtly  declined  consideration  of  our  claims  and 
nothing  further  was  done  about  it  until  in  August, 
1868,  Reverdy  Johnson  arrived  in  London  as  Min 
ister  by  Johnson's  appointment  and  undertook  with 
out  delay  negotiations  looking  toward  a  settlement. 
A  noticeable  change  had  come  upon  the  spirit  of  Eng- 


294  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

lish  statesmen  confronted  with  the  probability  of 
an  embroilment  in  continental  quarrels.  They  were 
now  glad  to  reach  an  understanding  with  the  United 
States  so  that  the  precedent  established  by  the  Ala 
bama  case  might  not  be  used  to  justify  the  fitting  out 
of  hostile  cruisers  in  American  ports  to  prey  on  Eng 
lish  commerce  in  event  of  war. 

Johnson  was  welcomed  with  effusiveness,  and  he 
was  flattered  by  the  marked  attentions  he  received. 
He  entered  joyfully  on  a  career  of  after-dinner  ora 
tory,  gushed  over  those  who  had  been  most  ostenta 
tious  in  their  sympathy  for  the  Confederate  cause, 
shook  hands  in  public  with  Laird,  who  bragged  about 
having  built  the  Alabama,  and  went  so  far  in  his 
endeavor  to  ingratiate  himself  in  his  new  post  as  to 
arouse  distrust  at  home.  When  in  January  he  con 
cluded  with  the  British  Foreign  Secretary  the  John 
son-Clarendon  Convention,  both  he  and  Seward  were 
dazed  to  find  that  terms  which  twelve  months  earlier 
would  have  been  ratified  with  little  opposition  were 
now  resented  by  the  Senate  and  the  people  as  the  re 
sult  of  truckling  to  the  English  Government  by  a 
tuft-hunting  diplomat.  Besides,  feeling  against  Eng 
land  had  grown  more  bitter.  The  sympathy  for  Ire 
land  in  her  struggle  for  home  rule  was  gaining 
strength,  and  Fenian  border  raids  against  Canada 
had  become  a  factor  to  be  considered. 


ARBITRATION   WITH    GREAT   BRITAIN     295 

The  convention  was  carried  over  into  the  new  Ad 
ministration,  and  when  it  came  up  for  action  in  the 
Senate,  it  was  almost  literally  without  a  friend.  Rati 
fication  was  defeated  by  a  vote  of  54  to  1,  on  April 
13,  1869.  The  debate  consisted  chiefly  in  a  speech 
by  Sumner  for  which  there  was  no  need  and  which 
might  much  better  never  have  been  uttered.  But 
Sumner,  never  discreet,  insisted  upon  a  spoken  rec 
ord  of  his  attitude,  and  his  impassioned  attack  upon 
Great  Britain,  from  which  the  ban  of  secrecy  was 
removed  by  formal  vote,  went  into  history  to  be 
come  a  mischief -breeding  influence  on  subsequent 
events. 

It  was  close  upon  the  heels  of  the  rejection  of  the 
Johnson-Clarendon  Convention,  while  Sumner's  extra 
ordinary  demands  still  stirred  public  imagination, 
that  Motley  was  named  as  Johnson's  successor  at 
the  Court  of  St.  James.  Charles  Francis  Adams,  the 
elder,  recently  returned  from  the  British  mission 
and  watching  at  home  the  progress  of  affairs,  wrote 
privately  that  the  practical  effect  of  Sumner's  speech 
and  the  rejection  of  the  treaty  was  "  to  raise  the  scale 
of  our  demands  for  reparation  so  very  high  that  there 
is  no  chance  of  negotiation  left,  unless  the  English 
have  lost  all  their  spirit  and  character."  Sumner 
with  splendid  efflorescence  of  mathematics  had  fig 
ured  that  our  direct  or  individual  losses  "  due  to  the 


296  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

foraging  of  the  Alabama"  were  $15,000,00()C  but  this 
modest  sum  left  without  recognition  "the  vaster 
damage  to  commerce  driven  from  the  ocean,"  which 
he  reckoned  at  $110,000,000,  and  he  added,  "Of 
course  this  is  only  an  item  in  our  bill." 

He  traced  the  prolongation  of  the  war  directly  to 
England.  "The  rebellion  was  originally  encouraged 
by  hope  of  support  from  England,"  he  cried;  "  it  was 
strengthened  at  once  by  the  concession  of  belligerent 
rights  on  the  ocean;  it  was  fed  to  the  end  by  British 
supplies  .  .  .  ;  it  was  quickened  into  frantic  life  with 
every  report  from  the  British  pirates,  flaming  anew 
with  every  burning  ship;  nor  can  it  be  doubted  that 
without  British  intervention  the  rebellion  would  have 
soon  succumbed  under  the  well-directed  efforts  of  the 
National  Government.  Not  weeks  nor  months  but 
years  were  added  in  this  way  to  our  war,  so  full  of 
costly  sacrifice." 

Calculating  that  the  rebellion  was  suppressed  at  a 
cost  of  more  than  $4,000,000,000  and  that  through 
British  intervention  the  war  was  doubled  in  duration, 
he  came  easily  to  the  conclusion  that  England  was 
chargeable  with  half  the  total  expenditure,  or 
$2,000,000,000,  making  our  entire  bill  against  her 
$2,125,000,000,  at  a  low  estimate.  This  sounded 
large  and  bellicose,  but  the  explanation  seems  to  be 
that  Sumner  had  no  intention  either  of  collecting 


ARBITRATION   WITH   GREAT   BRITAIN     297 

such  a  claim  or  of  risking  war  with  England  to  en 
force  it.  What  Sumner  had  in  mind  was  not  the 
collection  of  an  enormous  indemnity  in  money,  but 
rather  the  adjustment  of  all  differences  through  an 
nexation  of  British  territory  and  the  withdrawal  of 
the  British  flag  from  North  America. 

The  annexation  of  Canada,  especially  in  view  of 
the  aggressive  Irish  sentiment  at  the  time  and  the 
recurring  Fenian  demonstrations,  was  not  a  prepos 
terous  proposal,  but  there  was  a  difference  of  opinion 
as  to  how  best  to  go  about  it.  Chandler  in  the  Sen 
ate  had  suggested  that  it  was  an  essential  to  continue 
peace:  "We  cannot  afford  to  have  our  enemies'  base 
so  near  us.  It  is  a  national  necessity  that  we  should 
have  the  British  possessions.  I  hope  that  such  a  ne 
gotiation  will  be  opened  and  that  it  will  be  a  peace 
ful  one;  but  if  it  should  not  be,  and  England  insists 
on  war,  then  let  the  war  be  short,  sharp,  and  deci 
sive."  We  have  Grant's  own  authority  for  believing 
that  he  would  not  have  been  afraid  of  such  an  out 
come.  He  thought  at  one  time  during  the  year  that 
Sheridan  could  have  taken  Canada  in  thirty  days. 
Moreover,  British  statesmen  did  not  set  such  store 
on  their  American  possessions  fifty  years  ago  as  later, 
and  they  might  have  welcomed  a  separation  effected 
in  a  creditable  way.  The  real  obstacle  to  annexation 
lay  with  the  Canadians  themselves,  who  have  never 


298  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

seen  the  time  when  they  did  not  prefer  connection 
with  the  mother  country  to  union  with  our  own. 

Grant  was  an  expansionist  as  much  as  Sumner,  but 
he  looked  upon  expansion  to  the  north  more  as  a 
military  problem  than  a  question  of  sentiment.  His 
mind  dwelt  much  more  readily  on  territorial  extension 
•to  the  south.  Cuba,  San  Domingo,  and  Mexico,  with 
their  untold  natural  resources  awaiting  the  inspira 
tion  of  American  development,  appealed  to  him  with 
greater  force  than  the  barren  stretches  of  the  Cana 
dian  Northwest,  and  here  is  where  he  differed  radi 
cally  from  Sumner,  who,  throughout  a  tempestuous 
career  in  studying  his  political  compass,  had  been 
accustomed  to  associate  the  North  with  human  lib 
erty  and  the  South  with  slaves. 

It  was  in  this  divergence  between  Grant  and 
Sumner  that  Fish,  the  conservative,  unimaginative 
lawyer,  elevated  against  his  own  inclination  to  be 
Secretary  of  State,  found  an  opportunity  for  wise  and 
courageous  service.  Sumner  assumed  that  in  his  ca 
pacity  as  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Re 
lations  and  leader  of  the  Senate,  the  shaping  of  the 
foreign  policy  would  now  devolve  upon  him.  Motley, 
his  lifelong  friend,  was  unconsciously  under  his  in 
fluence,  and  might  also  be  said  in  his  new  mission  to 
regard  himself  as  representing  Sumner  rather  than 
the  President  or  the  Secretary  of  State. 


ARBITRATION   WITH   GREAT   BRITAIN    299 

Motley's  first  act  after  confirmation  was  to  pre 
pare  a  memorandum  which  he  handed  to  Fish  out 
lining  the  instructions  which  should  be  given  him. 
The  memorandum  might  as  well  have  been  dictated 
by  Sumner,  so  accurately  did  it  reflect  his  views.  It 
questioned  the  advisability  of  trying  to  renew  ne 
gotiations,  dilated  on  the  Queen's  proclamation  of 
May,  1861,  recognizing  Southern  belligerency,  as  a 
wrong  committed  by  Great  Britain  and  deeply  felt 
by  the  American  people,  —  a  sense  of  wrong  declared 
gravely,  solemnly,  without  passion,  and  not  to  be 
expunged  by  a  mere  money  payment  to  reimburse 
a  few  captures  and  conflagrations  at  sea. 

Grant  was  disposed  to  let  Motley  go  ahead;  but 
Fish,  already  sensible  of  his  new  responsibilities,  had 
other  things  in  view.  In  the  first  place,  he  had  deter 
mined  if  possible  to  reopen  negotiations  and  bring 
them  to  a  successful  conclusion.  In  the  second  place, 
events  in  Cuba  were  so  shaping  themselves  as  to 
affect  the  manner  of  our  approach  to  the  British  prob 
lem.  He  took  his  own  time  in  preparing  Motley's 
instructions,  and  when  completed,  they  bore  little 
resemblance  to  the  memorandum  submitted.  He 
declared  that  in  spite  of  the  failure  of  the  Johnson- 
Clarendon  Convention  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  did  not  abandon  hope  of  "an  early,  satisfac 
tory,  and  friendly  settlement  of  the  questions  depend- 


300  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

ing  between  the  two  Governments  "  and  expressed  the 
President's  hope  that  the  suspension  of  negotiations 
would  be  regarded  by  Her  Majesty's  Government,  as 
it  was  by  him,  "as  wholly  in  the  interest  of,  and  solely 
with  a  view  to,  an  early  and  friendly  settlement." 
Nothing  here  about  "massive  grievance,"  "indi 
rect  claims,"  "immense  and  infinite  damages,"  or 
"ill-omened"  and  "fatal"  proclamation  which  had 
"  opened  the  flood-gates  to  infinite  woes." 

Fish  always  thought  that  negotiations  could  be 
conducted  more  satisfactorily  in  Washington  than 
London;  and  within  a  week  after  the  rejection  of  the 
Johnson-Clarendon  Convention  he  had  written  to  a 
friend:  "Whenever  negotiations  are  renewed,  the 
atmosphere  and  the  surroundings  of  this  side  of  the 
water  are  more  favorable  to  a  proper  solution  of  the 
question  than  the  dinner  tables  and  the  public  ban- 
quetings  of  England."  This  was  before  he  had  op 
portunity  to  appraise  the  diplomatic  skill  of  Mot 
ley  and  before  he  had  been  regaled  with  a  perusal 
of  Motley's  memorandum. 

Motley  reached  England  with  his  revised  instruc 
tions  early  in  May,  1869,  still  imbued  with  Sumner's 
conception  of  the  measureless  injury  done  the  Union 
cause  by  the  proclamation  of  belligerency.  So  com 
plete  was  his  misapprehension  of  the  purpose  of  his 
mission  that  in  his  first  interview  with  Lord  Claren- 


ARBITRATION   WITH   GREAT   BRITAIN    301 

don  he  laid  special  stress  upon  the  proclamation  as 
"  the  fountain  head  of  the  disasters  which  had  been 
caused  to  the  American  people,  both  individually  and 
collectively."  With  the  submission  to  his  superior 
of  the  report  of  this  interview,  Motley's  career  as  a 
diplomat  may  fairly  be  said  to  have  come  to  an  end. 

John  Russell  Young  reports  Grant  as  saying  at 
Edinburgh  in  1877,  "Mr.  Motley  had  to  be  in 
structed.  The  instructions  were  prepared  very  care 
fully,  and  after  Governor  Fish  and  I  had  gone  over 
them  for  the  last  time,  I  wrote  an  addendum  charg 
ing  him  that  above  all  things  he  should  handle  the 
subject  of  the  Alabama  claims  with  the  greatest  deli 
cacy.  Mr.  Motley,  instead  of  obeying  his  implicit 
instructions,  deliberately  fell  in  line  with  Sumner  and 
thus  added  insult  to  the  previous  injury.  As  soon 
as  I  heard  of  it,  I  went  over  to  the  State  Department 
and  told  Governor  Fish  to  dismiss  Motley  at  once.  I 
was  very  angry  indeed,  and  I  have  been  sorry  many 
a  time  since  that  I  did  not  stick  to  my  first  deter 
mination.  Mr.  Fish  advised  delay,  because  of  Sum- 
ner's  position  in  the  Senate  and  his  attitude  on  the 
treaty  question.  We  did  not  want  to  stir  him  up 
just  then.  We  dispatched  a  severe  note  of  censure  to 
Motley  at  once  and  asked  him  to  abstain  from  any 
further  connection  with  these  questions." 

Motley's  subsequent  residence  in  England,  how- 


302  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

ever  creditable  and  brilliant  may  have  been  its  per 
sonal  and  social  aspects,  had  little  bearing  upon 
results  except  as  it  may  have  retarded  them.  The 
negotiations  leading  to  the  Treaty  of  Washington 
and  the  settlement  of  the  Alabama  claims,  through 
the  Geneva  Tribunal,  were  carried  on  to  a  successful 
conclusion  in  Washington  without  his  participation. 
The  final  request  for  his  resignation  and  his  summary 
removal,  though  figuring  dramatically  in  the  history 
of  the  time,  had  no  effect  upon  our  diplomatic  negoti 
ations  with  the  country  to  which  he  was  accredited, 
though  in  part  incidental  to  them. 

It  was  through  Caleb  Gushing  that  the  first  steps 
were  taken  toward  a  renewal  of  negotiations.  As 
counsel  before  the  joint  tribunal  arbitrating  the 
claims  of  the  Hudson's  Bay  and  Puget  Sound  Com 
panies  under  the  Treaty  of  1863,  he  had  made  the 
acquaintance  of  John  Rose,  acting  as  British  Com 
missioner,  a  man  of  prominence  in  Canadian  public 
life  described  as  "a  natural  diplomat  of  a  high  or 
der."  By  suggestion  of  Rose,  who  may  have  spoken 
with  authority,  Gushing  arranged  an  interview  in 
Washington  between  Rose  and  Fish.  On  July  8,  just 
four  weeks  after  Motley's  unhappy  interview  with 
Clarendon,  they  came  together,  and  while  Motley 
was  discoursing  despondently  in  London  about  "a 
path  surrounded  by  peril"  and  "grave  and  disas- 


ARBITRATION   WITH   GREAT   BRITAIN     303 

trous  misunderstandings  and  cruel  war,"  Fish  and 
Rose  were  already  well  advanced  on  the  road  to  a 
renewal  of  negotiations. 

These  informal  exchanges  continued  through  the 
summer  and  autumn.  Sumner,  not  yet  alienated 
from  Fish,  was  cognizant  of  them.  He  was  even  ad 
vised,  although  no  names  were  given,  of  a  letter  now 
historic,  in  which  Rose,  writing  from  London,  asked: 
"  Is  your  representative  here  a  gentleman  of  the  most 
conciliatory  spirit?  ...  I  think  I  understood  you  to 
say  that  you  thought  negotiations  would  be  more 
likely  to  be  attended  with  satisfactory  results,  if  they 
were  transferred  to  and  were  concluded  at  Washing 
ton;  because  you  could  from  time  to  time  communi 
cate  confidentially  with  leading  Senators  and  know 
how  far  you  could  carry  that  body  with  you.  .  .  .  But 
again  is  your  representative  of  that  mind?  And  how 
is  it  to  be  brought  about?  By  a  new  or  a  special 
envoy  —  as  you  spoke  of  —  or  quietly  through  Mr. 
Thornton?"  Sumner  not  only  ignored  the  intended 
hint  for  Motley's  benefit,  but  treated  it  as  an  anon 
ymous  attack  entitled  to  contempt;  while  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes,  the  loving  and  loyally  biased  bio 
grapher  of  Motley,  writing  in  1879,  two  years  after 
Motley's  death,  refers  to  the  then  unnamed  writer  as 
"  a  faithless  friend,  a  disguised  enemy,  a  secret  emis 
sary,  or  an  injudicious  alarmist." 


304  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

After  the  earlier  steps  coincident  with  sending 
Motley  to  London,  Grant  gave  Fish  a  free  hand  with 
the  British  Foreign  Office.  But  Fish  could  never 
have  succeeded  in  his  diplomacy  if  he  had  not  felt 
Grant  behind  him  all  the  time,  approving  him  in 
every  stand  he  made,  and  giving  him  unfaltering 
support.  It  would  be  hard  to  say  to  which  belongs 
the  greater  credit  for  the  final  diplomatic  triumph, 
Grant  or  Fish;  but  the  responsibility  for  success  or 
failure  lay  with  Grant. 

In  his  first  annual  message  of  December  6,  1869, 
Grant  commented  with  approval  on  the  rejection  of 
the  Johnson-Clarendon  Convention.  "The  injuries 
resulting  to  the  United  States  by  reason  of  the  course 
adopted  by  Great  Britain  during  our  late  Civil  War 
.  .  .  could  not  be  adjusted  and  satisfied  as  ordinary 
commercial  claims,  which  continually  arise  between 
commercial  nations,  and  yet  the  convention  treated 
them  as  such  ordinary  claims,  from  which  they  differ 
more  widely  in  the  gravity  of  their  character  than  in 
the  magnitude  of  their  amount,  great  even  as  is  that 
difference.  Not  a  word  was  found  in  the  treaty,  and 
not  an  inference  could  be  drawn  from  it,  to  remove 
the  sense  of  unfriendliness  of  the  course  of  Great 
Britain  in  our  struggle  for  existence  which  had  so 
deeply  and  universally  impressed  itself  upon  the  peo 
ple  of  this  country."  The  rejection  of  the  treaty, 


ARBITRATION   WITH   GREAT   BRITAIN     305 

"thus  misconceived  in  its  scope  and  inadequate  in 
its  provisions,"  he  regarded  as  in  the  interest  of 
peace.  "A  sensitive  people,  conscious  of  their  power, 
are  more  at  ease  under  a  great  wrong,  wholly  un- 
atoned,  than  under  the  restraint  of  a  settlement 
which  satisfies  neither  their  ideas  of  justice  nor 
their  grave  sense  of  the  grievances  they  have  sus 
tained." 

He  expressed  the  hope  that  the  time  might  soon 
arrive  "when  the  two  Governments  may  approach 
the  solution  of  this  momentous  question  with  an  ap 
preciation  of  what  is  due  the  rights,  dignity,  and 
honor  of  each,  and  with  the  determination  not  only 
to  remove  the  causes  of  complaint  in  the  past,  but  to 
lay  the  foundation  of  a  broad  principle  of  public  law 
which  will  prevent  future  differences  and  tend  to  firm 
and  continued  peace  and  friendship."  How  fully  this 
hope  was  realized  will  appear  in  the  result. 

The  Franco-Prussian  War  came  in  to  help,  for 
England,  in  the  face  of  trouble  on  the  Continent,  was 
getting  ready  in  the  fall  of  1870  to  bring  about  a  suit 
able  adjustment  of  all  outstanding  quarrels.  Grant 
seized  the  opportunity  in  his  second  annual  message, 
December  5,  1870,  to  stimulate  the  British  Foreign 
Office  to  greater  haste.  He  regretted  to  say  "that  no 
conclusion  has  been  reached  for  the  adjustment  of 
the  claims  against  Great  Britain  growing  out  of  the 


306  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

course  adopted  by  that  Government  during  the  re 
bellion.  The  Cabinet  of  London,  so  far  as  its  views 
have  been  expressed,  does  not  appear  to  be  willing  to 
concede  that  Her  Majesty's  Government  was  guilty 
of  any  negligence  or  did  or  permitted  any  act  during 
the  war  by  which  the  United  States  has  just  cause  of 
complaint.  Our  firm  and  unalterable  convictions  are 
directly  the  reverse."  He  therefore  recommended 
the  appointment  of  a  commission  "to  take  proof  of 
the  amount  and  ownership  of  these  several  claims," 
and  that  authority  be  given  for  settlement  of  these 
claims  by  the  United  States  so  that  the  Government 
would  have  ownership  of  the  private  claims  as  well  as 
the  responsible  control  of  all  the  demands  against 
Great  Britain;  and  he  added  that  whenever  Her  Maj 
esty's  Government  should  desire  a  "  full  and  friendly 
adjustment,"  the  United  States  would  enter  upon  a 
consideration  of  the  claims  "with  an  earnest  desire 
for  a  conclusion  consistent  with  the  honor  and  dig 
nity  of  both  nations." 

The  passage  containing  this  hint  appeared  in  the 
London  newspapers  on  December  6,  1870.  Exactly 
five  weeks  later,  on  January  9,  1871,  Mr.  Rose,  hav 
ing  hurried  from  London,  dined  with  Mr.  Fish  in 
Washington,  and  before  the  evening  was  over  the 
two  had  agreed  on  a  confidential  memorandum  which 
was  to  be  the  basis  of  negotiations.  From  that  day 


ARBITRATION   WITH   GREAT   BRITAIN     307 

until  the  signing  of  the  Treaty  of  Washington  on 
May  8,  1871,  events  moved  in  orderly  progress  under 
the  firm  guidance  of  the  Secretary  of  State. 

Sumner  had  broken  completely  with  both  Grant 
and  Fish  over  the  San  Domingo  affair  during  the 
negotiations,  but  he  was  still  at  the  head  of  the 
"first  committee  of  the  Senate,"  a  place  which  he 
regarded  as  "equal  in  position  to  anything  in  our 
Government  under  the  President";  and  Fish,  with 
his  eye  fixed  on  the  success  of  his  undertaking,  ar 
ranged  through  Patterson,  another  member  of  the 
Foreign  Relations  Committee,  for  an  interview  at 
Sumner's  house.  He  left  with  Sumner  on  January  15 
the  written  memorandum  of  his  understanding  with 
Rose.  It  was  returned  by  Sumner  two  days  later 
with  a  note  admitting  the  propriety  of  Sir  John 
Rose's  idea  that  "all  questions  and  causes  of  irrita 
tion  between  England  and  the  United  States  should 
be  removed  absolutely  and  forever"  and  that  "all 
points  of  difference  should  be  considered  together"; 
and  concluding  with  this  proposition:  "The  greatest 
trouble,  if  not  peril,  being  a  constant  source  of  anxi 
ety  and  disturbance,  is  from  Fenianism,  which  is  ex 
cited  by  the  British  flag  in  Canada.  Therefore  the 
withdrawal  of  the  British  flag  cannot  be  abandoned 
as  a  condition  or  preliminary  of  such  a  settlement  as 
is  now  proposed.  To  make  the  settlement  complete, 


308  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

the  withdrawal  should  be  from  this  hemisphere  in 
cluding  provinces  and  islands." 

An  astounding  suggestion  it  seems,  and  coming 
from  the  chairman  of  the  committee  which  would 
have  to  pass  upon  any  treaty  for  which  they  might 
pave  the  way,  not  an  encouragement  to  further  par 
ley  along  the  lines  which  the  negotiations  had  in 
view;  but  Fish  and  Rose,  with  Grant's  fixed  approval, 
took  no  account  of  Sumner's  comment  and  went 
ahead  with  their  arrangements  without  considering 
impossible  demands. 

The  British  Minister  submitted  a  proposal  for  the 
appointment  of  a  Joint  High  Commission,  to  be  com 
posed  of  members  to  be  named  by  each  Government, 
to  hold  its  session  at  Washington,  and  to  treat  and 
discuss  the  mode  of  settling  the  different  questions 
which  had  arisen  out  of  the  fisheries,  as  well  as  those 
affecting  the  relations  of  the  United  States  toward 
the  British  possessions  in  North  America.  Fish, 
backed  by  Grant,  insisted  that  the  Alabama  question 
should  be  within  the  scope  of  discussion  and  settle 
ment  by  the  commission,  and  the  British  Govern 
ment  assented. 

Grant,  on  February  9,  1871,  nominated  as  com 
missioners  on  the  part  of  the  United  States:  Hamil 
ton  Fish,  Secretary  of  State;  Robert  C.  Schenck, 
Minister  to  Great  Britain ;  Samuel  Nelson,  Associate 


ARBITRATION   WITH   GREAT   BRITAIN     309 

Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court;  Ebenezer  R.  Hoar,  of 
Massachusetts;  George  H.  Williams,  of  Oregon.  If 
it  had  not  been  for  Sumner's  unreasonableness  and 
Motley's  petulance,  the  historian  of  the  Dutch  Re 
public  might  well  have  been  a  member  of  the  com 
mission,  thus  adding  luster  to  his  fine  career. 

The  British  members  were :  Earl  de  Grey  and  Ri- 
pon,  a  member  of  Gladstone's  Cabinet;  Sir  Stafford 
Northcote,  a  conservative  leader  in  Parliament;  Sir 
Edward  Thornton,  British  Minister  in  Washington; 
Professor  Montague  Bernard,  of  Oxford  University; 
and  Sir  John  A.  Macdonald,  the  Premier  of  Canada. 

Within  six  weeks  the  British  and  American  Joint 
High  Commission  were  at  work  in  Washington  upon 
the  treaty.  When  it  was  laid  before  the  Senate,  on 
the  10th  of  May,  Sumner  was  no  longer  at  the  head 
of  the  Committee  upon  the  chairmanship  of  which  he 
set  such  store.  He  had  been  deposed  in  March,  for 
reasons  not  directly  bearing  on  the  negotiations  with 
Great  Britain,  though,  as  it  seems  to-day,  the  ratifi 
cation  of  a  treaty  was  so  vital  to  the  maintenance  of 
friendly  relations  with  Great  Britain,  that  the  un 
precedented  action  of  the  Senate  might  have  been 
justified  by  that  alone. 

Shorn  of  his  place  Sumner  accepted  the  treaty 
with  reasonable  grace.  It  was  ratified  in  due  course 
on  May  24,  1871.  The  principle  of  arbitration  in  in- 


310  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

ternational  disputes  had  won  its  first  great  triumph. 
Great  Britain  appointed  as  its  arbitrator  Chief  Jus 
tice  Alexander  Cockburn;  the  United  States,  Charles 
Francis  Adams.  The  King  of  Italy,  the  President  of 
the  Swiss  Confederation,  and  the  Emperor  of  Brazil 
named  three  neutral  arbitrators.  Lord  Tenterden 
was  the  British  agent  and  Sir  Roundell  Palmer  the 
counsel.  J.  C.  Bancroft  Davis,  Assistant  Secretary 
of  State,  was  agent  for  the  United  States.  The  Amer 
ican  counsel  were  William  M.  Evarts,  Caleb  Cushing, 
and  Morrison  R.  Waite. 

The  Board  of  Arbitration  met  at  Geneva,  on  De 
cember  15,  1871,  and  in  the  following  September 
it  had  done  its  work.  But  even  to  the  very  last  the 
shadow  of  Sumner's  "massive  grievance"  and  "in 
direct  claims"  hung  over  it  threatening  in  the  crude- 
ness  of  the  manner  of  their  presentation  more  than 
once  to  bring  the  arbitration  to  a  futile  end.  Had  it 
not  been  for  the  firmness,  tact,  and  diplomatic  com 
prehension  of  Charles  Francis  Adams  the  arbitration 
would  have  broken  on  those  issues.  On  September  2, 
by  a  vote  of  four  to  one  at  the  twenty-ninth  confer 
ence,  the  tribunal  decided  to  award  in  gross  the  sum 
of  $15,500,000,  to  be  paid  in  gold  by  Great  Britain 
to  the  United  States  for  the  damage  done  by  the 
Florida,  Alabama,  and  Shenandoah.  Cockburn  alone 
dissented. 


ARBITRATION   WITH   GREAT   BRITAIN     311 

Thus  Grant  must  have  the  credit  for  establishing 
the  principle  of  arbitration  in  international  disputes; 
for  this  was  brought  about  by  reason  of  the  firmness 
with  which  he  held  to  the  validity  of  American  de 
mands.  If  anywhere  along  the  line  his  conduct  had 
been  marked  by  vacillation,  the  result  could  not  have 
been  achieved.  To  him  must  also  go  the  credit  of 
being  among  the  earliest  to  encourage  the  principle 
of  a  World's  Congress,  as  afterwards  embodied  in 
the  Hague  Tribunal,  when  to  the  Arbitration  Union 
in  Birmingham  he  said:  "Nothing  would  afford  me 
greater  happiness  than  to  know  that,  as  I  believe 
will  be  the  case,  at  some  future  day,  the  nations  of 
the  earth  will  agree  upon  some  sort  of  congress, 
which  will  take  cognizance  of  international  questions 
of  difficulty,  and  whose  decisions  will  be  as  bind 
ing  as  the  decisions  of  our  Supreme  Court  are  upon 
us.  It  is  a  dream  of  mine  that  some  such  solution 
may  be." 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 

THE  SAN  DOMINGO  TRAGEDY 

IN  the  geography  of  the  Western  Hemisphere  Hayti 
and  San  Domingo  are  insignificant.  Among  the 
Latin  American  republics  they  cut  no  figure;  yet  they 
have  h?d  influence  on  the  politics  of  the  United 
States  quite  out  of  keeping  with  their  own  impor 
tance.  It  is  a  rare  administration  which  passes  with 
out  unhappy  experience  with  one  or  the  other  of 
these  misadventures  in  negro  self-government.  Grant 
found  in  San  Domingo  a  tragedy  of  his  career  —  his 
first  unqualified  defeat. 

Although  once  nominally  united,  the  two  sections 
of  the  island  had  been  independent  revolutionary 
centers  for  twenty-five  years.  Hayti,  originally  un 
der  the  control  of  France,  occupied  a  third  of  the 
island  and  had  four  fifths  of  the  population.  San 
Domingo,  which  had  been  a  colony  of  Spain,  though 
sparsely  settled,  furnished  frequent  rotations  in  its 
crops  of  insurrection.  For  some  years,  two  leaders, 
Baez  and  Cabral,  had  taken  turns  at  being  president, 
sometimes  through  violence  tempered  by  a  popular 
primary,  sometimes  through  violence  alone. 

Baez  at  the  time  was  called  by  enemies  of  Grant 


THE   SAN   DOMINGO   TRAGEDY          313 

a  mercenary  adventurer,  but  Andrew  D.  White,  who 
talked  with  him  in  Domingo,  describes  him  as  a  man 
of  force  and  ability,  a  light  mulatto  with  none  of  the 
characteristics  generally  attributed  in  the  United 
States  to  men  of  mixed  blood.  "  In  all  his  conduct 
he  showed  quiet  self-reliance,  independence,  and  the 
tone  of  a  high-spirited  gentleman.  His  family  was 
noted  in  the  history  of  the  island  and  held  large  es 
tates  near  the  capital  city.  .  .  .  There  was  a  quiet 
elegance  in  his  manners  and  conversation  which  would 
have  done  credit  to  any  statesman  in  any  country. 
...  I  have  never  doubted  that  his  overtures  to 
General  Grant  were  patriotic.  As  long  as  he  could  re 
member  he  had  known  nothing  in  his  country  but  a 
succession  of  sterile  revolutions  which  had  destroyed 
all  its  prosperity  and  nearly  all  its  population." 

During  Johnson's  Administration,  Baez,  out  of 
power  for  a  while,  had  come  to  Washington  seeking 
intervention.  In  1868  he  had  another  term  as  presi 
dent;  while  Cabral  hovered  on  the  Haytian  border, 
waiting  to  pounce  on  him  again.  Baez  sent  a  confi 
dential  agent  to  Washington,  and  Johnson  in  his 
last  annual  message,  at  Seward's  instigation,  recom 
mended  the  annexation  of  the  entire  island. 

Baez  repeated  his  overtures  almost  as  soon  as  the 
new  Administration  was  installed.  He  met  with  scant 
consideration  at  first  except  from  Grant  himself,  who 


314  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

saw  in  San  Domingo  not  only  rich  natural  resources, 
but  a  refuge  for  the  colored  people  of  the  South. 

The  project  of  annexation  seems  to  have  grown 
upon  Grant  before  the  Secretary  of  State  or  other 
members  of  the  Cabinet  were  fully  aware  of  it.  There 
was  talk  about  it  in  Cabinet  meetings  to  which  Grant 
listened  without  comment,  and  it  was  generally  un 
derstood  that  the  policy  of  the  Administration  was 
against  intervention,  until  one  day  in  May  Grant 
casually  remarked  that  as  the  navy  seemed  to  want 
Samana  Bay  for  a  coaling-station,  he  thought  he 
would  send  General  Babcock  down  to  report  upon  it 
as  an  engineer. 

Orville  E.  Babcock,  who  had  been  one  of  Grant's 
staff  in  the  later  years  of  the  war,  and  was  now  de 
tailed  at  the  White  House  as  an  assistant  private 
secretary,  was  a  young  man  of  great  personal  charm, 
energetic,  intelligent,  and  a  competent  military  en 
gineer;  but  through  his  indiscreet  activities  and  dubi 
ous  associations  he  contrived  in  one  way  and  another 
to  get  Grant  into  all  kinds  of  trouble.  Whatever 
merit  there  may  have  been  in  the  proposed  annexa 
tion,  there  was  very  little  in  Babcock's  part  in  it,  for 
which  Grant  with  his  customary  loyalty  accepted 
full  responsibility.  Babcock  started  for  San  Domingo 
in  July,  1869,  under  instructions  from  the  State  de 
partment  to  make  a  complete  inquiry  into  the  pop- 


THE   SAN   DOMINGO   TRAGEDY          315 

ulation  and  resources  of  the  island.  A  naval  vessel 
was  placed  at  his  disposal. 

On  September  4  Babcock  executed  with  the  Do 
minican  authorities  a  protocol  which  stipulated  for 
the  annexation  of  the  Dominican  Republic  with  the 
payment  of  $1,500,000  by  the  United  States  for  the 
extinction  of  the  Dominican  debt.  In  the  body  of 
the  protocol  he  assumed  the  ambitious  title  of  "Aide- 
de-camp  to  His  Excellency  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  Presi 
dent  of  the  United  States  of  America,"  and  added 
the  extraordinary  pledge  that  the  President  "prom 
ises  privately  to  use  all  his  influence  in  order  that  the 
idea  of  annexing  the  Dominican  Republic  to  the 
United  States  may  acquire  such  a  degree  of  popular 
ity  among  members  of  Congress  as  will  be  necessary 
for  its  accomplishment." 

Fish  was  astounded  when  he  discovered  what 
Babcock  had  brought  back  with  him.  "What  do  you 
think? "he  exclaimed  to  Jacob  D.  Cox.  "Babcock  's 
back  and  has  actually  brought  a  treaty  for  the  ces 
sion  of  San  Domingo;  yet  I  pledge  you  my  word  he 
had  no  more  diplomatic  authority  than  any  other 
casual  visitor  to  that  island ! "  Fish  would  have  ended 
the  incident  there  and  forgotten  it.  He  did  not 
dream  that  Grant  would  father  Babcock's  queer 
performance. 

At  the  next  Cabinet  meeting  Grant  began  by  say- 


316  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

ing,  "Babcock  has  returned,  as  you  see,  and  has 
brought  a  treaty  of  annexation.  I  suppose  it  is  not 
formal,  as  he  had  no  diplomatic  powers;  but  we  can 
easily  cure  that.  We  can  send  back  the  treaty,  and 
have  Perry,  the  consular  agent,  sign  it;  and  as  he  is 
an  officer  of  the  State  Department  it  would  make  it 
all  right." 

There  was  an  awkward  silence,  broken  finally  by 
Cox,  who  asked,  "But,  Mr.  President,  has  it  been 
settled,  then,  that  we  want  to  annex  San  Domingo?" 
Grant  colored  and  smoked  hard  at  his  cigar.  Fish 
was  impassive,  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  portfolio  before 
him.  There  was  no  response  from  any  one.  "As  the 
silence  became  painful,"  writes  Cox,  "the  President 
called  for  another  item  of  business  and  left  the 
question  unanswered.  The  subject  was  never  again 
brought  up  before  the  assembled  Cabinet." 

Fish  was  in  an  intolerable  position.  Not  only 
had  his  department  been  compromised  by  Babcock's 
undertaking,  but  his  own  sincerity  was  called  in 
question  because  in  frequent  conversations  with 
Sumner  he  had  always  treated  the  talk  of  annexation 
as  idle  gossip.  He  tendered  his  resignation.  Grant 
begged  him  to  stay.  He  wanted  San  Domingo,  but 
he  needed  Fish;  and  the  Secretary,  ambitious  to 
bring  the  negotiations  with  Great  Britain  to  a  suc 
cessful  issue,  yielded  in  San  Domingo  in  order  that 


THE   SAN   DOMINGO   TRAGEDY         317 

he  might  achieve  the  greater  end.  Babcock  was  sent 
back  to  San  Domingo,  where  he  concluded  two  treat 
ies,  one  for  annexation,  the  other  for  the  lease  of  the 
Bay  of  Samana,  giving  at  the  same  time  the  Presi 
dent's  guaranty  to  the  Dominican  Republic  against 
all  foreign  intervention  until  the  treaties  could  be 
submitted  to  the  Dominican  people,  a  guaranty 
which  was  enforced  for  months  by  ships  of  our  navy 
under  Secretary  Robeson's  explicit  instructions. 

Leaving  our  men-of-war  in  the  neighborhood  to 
insure  protection  to  Baez,  Babcock  came  back  to 
Washington  in  December  bringing  his  treaties  with 
him.  Congress  was  in  holiday  recess  and  Grant  under 
took  to  assure  himself  of  the  support  of  Sumner  who 
was  one  of  the  few  Senators  remaining  in  town. 

On  the  evening  of  the  first  Sunday  in  January  the 
President  called  at  Sumner's  house  and  found  him 
at  dinner  with  two  friends,  Ben:  Perley  Poore,  the 
Washington  correspondent,  and  Colonel  John  W. 
Forney,  the  Secretary  of  the  Senate.  This  interview 
played  a  vital  part  in  the  subsequent  history  of  the 
Administration  and  marked  the  beginning  of  the 
irreconcilable  breach  between  Grant  and  Sumner. 
Grant  always  contended  that  Sumner  promised  to 
support  the  treaty.  Sumner  denied  that  he  had  done 
anything  of  the  kind.  Of  the  two  witnesses  Forney 
subsequently  expressed  the  opinion  that  Grant  was 


318  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

justified  in  feeling  he  could  count  on  Sumner's  back 
ing;  while  Poore  declared  that  "the  President  and 
the  Senator  misunderstood  each  other." 

According  to  Poore,  Grant  did  not  have  the  treaties 
or  any  memorandum  of  them  with  him.  He  dwelt 
especially  upon  the  expenditure  by  General  Babcock 
of  a  large  sum  taken  from  a  secret  service  fund  for 
promoting  intercourse  with  the  West  Indies  and  im 
pressed  Sumner  with  the  idea  that  he  feared  an  at 
tack  in  Congress  over  that  expenditure.  "While  I 
know,"  wrote  Poore  in  1877,  "that  Mr.  Sumner 
thought  that  the  President  had  come  to  enlist  his 
services  in  defending  this  expenditure  by  General 
Babcock,  I  have  no  doubt  but  that  the  President 
meant  (as  Colonel  Forney  thought  and  as  I  thought) 
the  treaty  for  the  acquisition  of  the  Dominican  Re 
public." 

The  President  promised  to  send  General  Babcock 
to  call  on  the  Senator  the  next  day,  with  copies  of  the 
papers,  and  left.  As  Mr.  Sumner  escorted  him  to  the 
door  he  said,  according  to  Forney :  "  Well,  Mr.  Presi 
dent,  I  am  a  Republican  and  an  Administration  man, 
and  I  will  do  all  I  can  to  make  your  Administration  a 
success.  I  will  give  the  subject  my  best  thought  and 
will  do  all  I  can  rightly  and  considerately  to  aid  you." 
Sumner  gave  his  own  version  in  the  speech  he  made  in 
the  Senate  December  21,  1870,  as  follows:  "I  have 


THE   SAN   DOMINGO   TRAGEDY          319 

heard  it  said  that  I  assured  the  President  that  I 
would  support  the  Administration  in  this  measure. 
Never !  He  may  have  formed  that  opinion,  but  never 
did  I  say  anything  to  justify  it;  nor  did  I  suppose  he 
could  have  failed  to  appreciate  the  reserve  with 
which  I  spoke.  My  language,  I  repeat,  was  precise* 
well  considered,  and  chosen  in  advance;  'I  am  an 
Administration  man,  and  whatever  you  do  will  al 
ways  find  in  me  the  most  careful  and  candid  consid 
eration.'  In  this  statement  I  am  positive.  It  was 
early  fixed  in  my  mind  and  I  know  that  I  am  right." 
Upon  such  seemingly  slight  divergences  of  view 
depended  subsequent  events.  Upon  a  difference  in 
interpretation  of  a  single  sentence,  Grant  had  no 
right  to  charge  Sumner  later  with  a  breach  of  faith, 
but  there  was  another  feature  seldom  alluded  to  by 
the  historians  of  the  time  which  contributed  to  the 
bitterness.  Sumner  always  maintained  and  declared 
frequently  in  conversation  that  Grant  was  intoxi 
cated  that  day,  and  the  charge  undoubtedly  reached 
Grant's  ears.  Poore  says  that  Grant  was  "not  in  the 
slightest  degree  under  the  influence  of  alcohol."  He 
thinks  that  Sumner  drew  his  inference  from  the  fact 
that,  before  the  subject  of  San  Domingo  came  up  for 
consideration  at  all,  the  President  became  intem- 
perately  angry  and  "expressed  himself  with  more 
warmth  than  I  ever  saw  him  display  either  before  or 


320  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

since  that  evening,"  in  discussing  the  case  of  ex- 
Representative  Ashley,  of  Ohio,  who  had  been  de 
posed  from  his  position  as  Governor  of  Montana, 
whom  Sumner  was  anxious  to  see  restored  and  whom 
Grant  hotly  denounced  as  a  mischief-maker  and  a 
worthless  fellow. 

Babcock  called  on  Sumner  the  next  day  with  cop 
ies  of  the  treaties,  and  Sumner  plainly  indicated  his 
displeasure  with  the  terms.  He  resented  it  that  the 
President  of  the  United  States  should  be  pledged  to 
lobby  the  treaty  through  the  Senate  and  this  resent 
ment  intensified  the  prejudice  he  held  against  the  an 
nexation  project  as  a  whole,  feeling  as  he  did  that  the 
extinction  of  the  Black  Republic  would  be  a  wrong 
to  the  negro  who  had  there  an  opportunity  to  work 
out  a  problem  in  self-government.  On  January  18  the 
treaties  were  laid  before  the  Committee  on  Foreign 
Relations  and  a  majority  of  the  Committee  expressed 
their  disapproval. 

Grant,  quick  to  learn  the  Committee's  attitude, 
became  more  set  than  ever  in  his  purpose.  He  sum 
moned  Senators  to  the  White  House;  he  camped  out 
in  the  President's  room  at  the  Capitol  and  begged 
one  after  another  personally  to  support  the  treaties. 
But  it  was  all  in  vain.  The  treaties  lay  with  the 
Committee  till  March  15,  when  an  adverse  report 
was  voted.  Sumner,  Schurz,  Patterson,  Cameron, 


THE   SAN   DOMINGO   TRAGEDY          321 

and  Casserly  in  favor  of  rejection;  Morton  and 
Harlan  against.  Grant  still  persisted  in  the  face 
of  defeat  apparently  assured.  Two  days  after  the 
adverse  report  he  visited  the  Senate  and  sent  for 
fourteen  Senators  to  meet  him.  He  continued  his 
activities  while  the  annexation  treaty  was  under 
consideration,  and  while  it  was  laid  aside  for  weeks 
without  action.1  The  day  before  the  vote  in  Com 
mittee  he  had  sent  a  brief  message  urging  favorable 
action  and  expressing  the  earnest  wish  that  the  Sen 
ate  would  not  permit  the  treaty  to  expire  by  limita 
tion.  On  May  31  he  sent  another  message  urging  an 

1  Schurz  tells  how  Grant,  meeting  him  at  a  reception,  asked 
him  to  the  White  House  where  he  plunged  forthwith  into  the 
subject  he  had  at  heart.  "  I  hear  you  are  a  member  of  the  Senate 
Committee  that  has  the  San  Domingo  treaty  under  consideration," 
he  said,  "  and  I  wish  you  would  support  that  treaty.  Won't  you  do 
that?"  Schurz  said  frankly  he  could  not  do  so,  and  proceeded  to 
give  his  reasons  at  considerable  length  and  with  great  earnestness. 
"  At  first  the  President  listened  to  me  with  evident  interest,  looking 
at  me  as  if  the  objections  to  the  treaty  which  I  expressed  were 
quite  new  to  him,  and  made  an  impression  on  his  mind.  But  after 
a  while  I  noticed  that  his  eyes  wandered  about  the  room  and  I 
became  doubtful  whether  he  listened  to  me  at  all.  When  I  had 
stopped  he  sat  silent  for  a  minute  or  two.  I,  of  course,  sat  silent, 
too,  waiting  for  him  to  speak.  At  last  he  said  in  a  perfectly  calm 
tone  as  if  nothing  had  happened:  'Well,  I  hope  you  will  at  least 
vote  for  the  confirmation  of  Mr.  Jones,  whom  I  have  selected  for  a 
foreign  mission.'  "  Schurz  had  never  heard  of  Jones  and  when  his 
name  came  before  the  Foreign  Relations  Committee  a  few  days 
later,  after  his  nomination  to  be  Minister  to  Belgium,  it  appeared 
that  other  members  of  the  committee  were  equally  in  the  dark. 
He  was  interested  in  street-car  lines  in  Chicago  and  was  subse 
quently  confirmed. 


322  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

extension  of  time  and  pressing  with  fervor  the  ad 
vantages  of  annexation. 

"I  feel  an  unusual  anxiety,"  he  said,  "for  the  rati 
fication  of  this  treaty,  because  I  believe  it  will  re 
dound  greatly  to  the  glory  of  the  two  countries  inter 
ested,  to  civilization  and  to  the  extirpation  of  the 
institution  of  slavery.  The  doctrine  promulgated  by 
President  Monroe  has  been  adhered  to  by  all  politi 
cal  parties,  and  I  now  deem  it  proper  to  assert  the 
equally  important  principle  that  hereafter  no  terri 
tory  on  this  continent  shall  be  regarded  as  subject  to 
transfer  to  a  European  power.  The  Government  of 
San  Domingo  has  voluntarily  sought  this  annexation. 
It  is  a  weak  power  numbering  probably  less  than 
120,000  souls,  and  yet  possessing  one  of  the  rich 
est  territories  under  the  sun,  capable  of  supporting 
a  population  of  10,000,000  people  in  luxury.  .  .  . 
The  acquisition  of  San  Domingo  is  an  adherence  to 
the  'Monroe  Doctrine';  it  is  a  measure  of  national 
protection;  it  is  asserting  our  just  claim  to  a  con 
trolling  influence  over  the  great  commercial  traffic 
soon  to  flow  from  east  to  west  by  the  way  of  the  Isth 
mus  of  Darien;  it  is  to  build  up  our  merchant  marine; 
it  is  to  furnish  new  markets  for  the  products  of  our 
farms,  shops,  and  manufactories;  it  is  to  make  slav 
ery  insupportable  in  Cuba  and  Porto  Rico  at  once, 
and  ultimately  so  in  Brazil;  it  is  to  settle  the  unhappy 


THE   SAN   DOMINGO   TRAGEDY          323 

condition  of  Cuba  and  end  an  exterminating  conflict; 
it  is  to  provide  honest  means  of  paying  our  honest 
debts,  without  overtaxing  the  people;  it  is  to  furnish 
our  citizens  with  the  necessaries  of  everyday  life  at 
cheaper  rates  than  ever  before;  and  it  is  in  fine  a 
rapid  stride  toward  that  greatness  which  the  intelli 
gence,  industry,  and  enterprise  of  the  citizens  of  the 
United  States  entitle  this  country  to  assume  among 
nations." 

Thus  Grant's  conception  of  the  importance  of  an 
nexation  fattened  on  opposition,  and  when,  on  June 
30,  ratification  was  defeated  by  a  tie  vote  in  the  Sen 
ate,  28  to  28,  his  anger  was  proportionately  intense, 
especially  against  Sumner,  who  he  believed  had 
proved  faithless  after  giving  him  assurance  of  sup 
port.  In  debate  the  Senator  had  denounced  the 
manner  of  negotiations,  and  had  bitterly  assailed 
Babcock  as  Grant's  personal  emissary.  Busybodies 
were  quick  to  instill  in  Grant's  mind  the  suspicion 
that  charges  of  fraud  and  corruption  which  were 
widely  spread  really  emanated  from  Sumner,  so  that 
Grant's  resentment  centered  on  the  Massachusetts 
Senator.  When,  the  day  after  the  rejection  of  the 
treaty,  Fish  by  Grant's  direction  asked  Motley  for 
his  resignation  the  general  conclusion  was  inevita 
ble  that  this  was  an  act  of  reprisal  against  Motley's 
friend  and  sponsor. 


324  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Grant  never  admitted  this  and  Motley  had  been 
for  months  in  bad  favor  with  the  Administration, 
owing  partly  to  his  early  ineptness  in  the  negotia 
tions  with  Great  Britain  and  partly  to  lack  of  tact  in 
his  dealings  with  the  President,  as  when  he  refused  to 
appoint  young  Nicholas  Fish  as  one  of  his  secretaries 
when  Grant  personally  requested  it.  Adam  Badeau 
declares  that  on  May  15,  six  weeks  before  the  vote  on 
the  treaty,  Grant  told  him  at  the  White  House  that 
he  was  going  to  remove  Motley. 

That  a  change  in  the  English  mission  had  been 
under  advisement  for  some  time  before  the  rejection 
of  the  treaty,  appears  from  Sumner's  own  statement 
in  his  subsequent  recital  of  his  grounds  for  grievance 
against  the  Administration.  Fish,  now  loyally  sup 
porting  the  San  Domingo  project  and  at  the  time 
still  friendly  to  Sumner,  two  weeks  before  the  final 
vote,  had  a  three  hours'  conference  at  the  Senator's 
house  one  night,  pressing  his  views,  and  in  the  course 
of  conversation  asked,  "Why  not  go  to  London?  I 
offer  you  the  English  mission.  It  is  yours."  Sumner 
coolly  replied,  "  We  have  a  minister  there  who  can 
not  be  bettered."  He  afterwards  cited  this  sugges 
tion  as  an  attempt  to  influence  him  improperly.  Fish 
said  the  suggestion  was  made  impulsively  through 
sympathy  for  Sumner,  who  had  just  referred  to  his 
domestic  troubles.  Whether  it  was  fairly  susceptible 


THE    SAN   DOMINGO   TRAGEDY          325 

to  a  sinister  interpretation  or  not,  it  would  certainly 
indicate  that  even  before  the  adverse  vote  upon  the 
treaty  Motley's  tenure  was  uncertain. 

There  came  also  then  a  sudden  request  for  the 
resignation  of  Attorney-General  Hoar,  Sumner's  only 
intimate  friend  in  the  Administration.  Since  Mas 
sachusetts  had  two  cabinet  members,  Hoar  early  in 
the  Administration  had  placed  his  resignation  in  the 
hands  of  the  President,  but  nothing  had  been  done 
about  it.  Grant,  who  enjoyed  Hoar's  humor  and 
companionship  in  spite  of  their  divergent  tastes, 
nominated  him  for  a  vacancy  on  the  Supreme  Bench 
in  December,  1869,  but  Southern  Senators,  whom 
Hoar  offended  by  refusing  to  honor  their  endorsement 
of  unfit  men  for  federal  judges  and  marshals  in  the 
South,  banded  together  in  resentment  and  defeated 
his  confirmation.  "What  could  you  expect  for  a  man 
who  had  snubbed  seventy  Senators?"  he  remarked 
philosophically  to  his  friends  of  the  Saturday  Club 
who  were  inclined  to  sympathize  with  him. 

One  afternoon  in  June,  shortly  before  the  San  Do 
mingo  treaty  was  to  be  voted  on,  he  was  suddenly 
asked  for  his  resignation  and  was  told  frankly  by 
Grant  that  he  had  been  obliged  to  take  the  step  in 
order  to  secure  support  in  the  Senate  from  South 
ern  Republicans,  who  demanded  the  Cabinet  place 
for  a  Southern  man.  The  President  had  no  one  in 


326  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

particular  in  mind  for  the  place,  but  sent  in  the 
name  of  Akerman,  of  Georgia,  the  next  day  on  Hoar 's 
own  suggestion  that  quick  action  would  save  em 
barrassment  through  Southern  pressure  for  the 
place. 

Motley  remained  in  London,  touched  to  his  sensi 
tive  soul,  broken  in  spirit,  awaiting  the  summary 
removal  which  finally  came  in  December.  The  ap 
proaches  to  Great  Britain  proceeded  deftly  and  con 
tinuously.  San  Domingo  slumbered;  but  naval  ves 
sels  hovered  near  her  coasts.  On  the  reconvening  of 
Congress  on  December  5,  1870,  Grant  revived  the 
issue  in  his  annual  message.  He  asked  for  authority 
to  negotiate  a  new  treaty,  and  suggested  a  resolution 
of  annexation,  as  in  the  case  of  Texas.  "So  convinced 
am  I  of  the  advantages  to  flow  from  the  acquisition 
of  San  Domingo  and  the  great  disadvantages  —  I 
might  almost  say  calamities  —  to  flow  from  the  non- 
acquisition,  that  I  believe  the  subject  has  only  to  be 
investigated  to  be  approved."  Morton,  fearing  the 
serious  consequences  of  a  defeat  for  the  Administra 
tion,  induced  a  compromise  on  a  resolution  to  ap 
point  a  commission  of  investigation,  which  he  forth 
with  offered  in  the  Senate. 

Sumner  was  in  a  rage.  His  wrath  had  been  fed  by 
tales  of  tattlers.  His  indignation  and  intolerance  had 
grown  through  the  summer.  He  "roared  like  the  Bull 


THE   SAN    DOMINGO   TRAGEDY          327 

of  Bashan"  when  he  got  to  discussing  the  President 
with  his  friends.  Grant  was  equally  bitter. 

Sumner  up  to  this  time  had  not  attacked  the 
President  in  open  debate  and  now  a  better  politician 
and  a  wiser  lawyer  would  have  let  the  San  Domingo 
business  alone,  since  it  was  plain  that  annexation 
either  by  treaty  or  joint  resolution  was  dead.  He 
could  have  consented  gracefully  to  Morton's  innocu 
ous  commission  of  investigation  and  that  would  have 
been  the  end  of  it;  but  his  fateful  propensity  for  put 
ting  himself  right  in  the  record  followed  him  now  as 
at  the  time  of  the  defeat  of  the  Johnson-Clarendon 
Convention.  Morton  urged  him  to  let  the  resolution 
pass  without  debate,  but  he  refused;  and  though  he 
was  warned  that  if  he  attacked  the  Administration 
the  President's  friends  would  be  forced  to  a  defense, 
and  an  open  rupture  would  result,  he  was  immovable. 
He  was  obsessed  with  animosity,  and  even  went  so 
far  as  to  assure  Morton  that  his  life  had  been  threat 
ened  at  the  White  House  by  Grant  and  Babcock. 
Morton  could  not  laugh  him  out  of  his  delusion. 

He  made  the  attack  on  December  21,  1870,  in  a 
speech  which  he  entitled  "Naboth's  Vineyard,"  be 
ginning,  "The  resolution  commits  Congress  to  a 
dance  of  blood,"  intimating  that  Grant  was  following 
in  the  steps  of  Pierce,  Buchanan,  and  Andrew  John 
son,  and  speaking  of  the  President  in  a  manner 


328  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

"  bitter  and  excited,"  according  to  Morton,  who  adds, 
"his  course  is  generally  regretted  by  his  best  friends 
of  whom  I  am  one."  Chandler  and  Conkling  made 
bitter  personal  attacks  on  Sumner. 

Morton's  resolution  was  adopted  in  both  House 
and  Senate.  A  commission  was  appointed  by  the 
President  consisting  of  Benjamin  F.  Wade,  a  radical 
Republican,  Andrew  D.  White,  an  unbiased  college 
president,  and  Samuel  G.  Howe,  the  abolitionist,  a 
confidential  friend  of  Sumner.  This  commission  vis 
ited  San  Domingo  accompanied  by  many  news 
paper  correspondents  and  by  other  observers,  and 
returned  favorable  to  annexation.  They  made  a 
report  to  Congress  containing  a  statement  of  facts 
and  indicating  the  resources  of  the  country.  "The 
mere  rejection  by  the  Senate  of  a  treaty  negotiated  by 
the  President,"  said  Grant  in  a  message  of  April  5, 
1871,  transmitting  the  report,  "only  indicates  a  dif 
ference  of  opinion  between  two  coordinate  depart 
ments  of  the  Government,  without  touching  the 
character  or  wounding  the  pride  of  either.  But 
when  such  rejection  takes  place  simultaneously  with 
charges  openly  made  of  corruption  on  the  part  of 
the  President  or  those  employed  by  him,  the  case  is 
different.  Indeed,  in  such  case  the  honor  of  the  na 
tion  demands  investigation.  This  has  been  accom 
plished  by  the  report  of  the  commissioners  herewith 


THE   SAN   DOMINGO   TRAGEDY          329 

transmitted,  and  which  fully  indicates  the  purity  of 
the  motives  and  action  of  those  who  represented  the 
United  States  in  the  negotiation.  .  .  .  And  now  my 
task  is  finished  and  with  it  ends  all  personal  solici 
tude  upon  the  subject.  My  duty  being  done,  yours 
begins;  and  I  gladly  hand  over  the  whole  matter  to 
the  judgment  of  the  American  people,  and  of  their  rep 
resentatives  in  Congress  assembled.  The  facts  will 
now  be  spread  before  the  country,  and  a  decision 
rendered  by  that  tribunal  whose  convictions  so  sel 
dom  err,  and  against  whose  will  I  have  no  policy  to 
enforce."  Nothing  further  was  ever  done  toward 
annexation,  though  Grant  returned  to  the  subject 
repeatedly  in  his  messages  to  Congress  expressing 
regret  that  his  recommendations  had  not  been  fol 
lowed.  He  reiterated  his  arguments  years  later  in  his 
book.  Sumner's  wrathful  explosion  had  no  effect 
whatever  upon  the  ultimate  result.  It  simply  served 
to  fan  a  feud,  fateful  alike  to  him  and  to  the  Ad 
ministration  he  might  have  served. 

Andrew  D.  White,  who  entered  on  the  inquiry 
with  an  open  mind,  sheds  interesting  light  upon 
the  character  of  Grant,  whom  he  interviewed  at  the 
White  House.  "Instead  of  the  taciturn  man  who,  as 
his  enemies  insisted,  said  nothing  because  he  knew 
nothing,  had  never  cared  for  anything  save  military 
matters,  and  was  entirely  absorbed  in  personal  in- 


330  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

terests,  I  found  a  quiet,  dignified  public  officer, 
who  presented  the  history  of  the  Santo  Domingo 
question,  and  his  view  regarding  it,  in  a  manner 
large,  thoughtful,  and  statesmanlike.  ...  As  I  took 
leave  of  him  he  gave  me  one  charge  for  which  I  shall 
always  revere  his  memory.  He  said :  '  .  .  .  You  have 
doubtless  noticed  hints  in  Congress  and  charges  in 
various  newspapers  that  I  am  financially  interested 
in  the  acquisition  of  Santo  Domingo.  Now,  as  a 
man,  as  your  fellow  citizen,  I  demand  that  on  your 
arrival  in  the  island  you  examine  thoroughly  into  all 
American  interests  there;  that  you  study  land  titles 
and  contracts  with  the  utmost  care ;  and  that  if  you 
find  anything  whatever  which  connects  me  or  any 
of  my  family  with  any  of  them,  you  expose  me  to 
the  American  people.'  The  President  uttered  these 
words  in  a  tone  of  deep  earnestness." 

However  we  may  criticize  the  way  Grant  tried  to 
force  the  San  Domingo  treaty  through  the  Senate,  he 
will  be  justified  by  history  in  his  intent;  for  he  fore 
saw  far  in  advance  of  others  that  some  time  the  island 
must  be  a  part  of  the  United  States.  If  we  had  taken 
over  San  Domingo  when  we  had  the  opportunity,  we 
should  have  been  spared  unpleasant  complications 
and  sordid  scandals  running  through  many  years. 
Annexation  will  come  about  in  time,  but  never  with 
so  little  friction  or  expense. 


THE    SAN    DOMINGO    TRAGEDY          331 

"In  future  while  I  hold  my  present  office,"  Grant 
wrote  in  his  second  inaugural,  "the  subject  of  acqui 
sition  of  territory  must  have  the  support  of  the  peo 
ple  before  I  will  recommend  any  proposition  looking 
to  such  acquisition.  I  say  here,  however,  that  I  do 
not  share  in  the  apprehension  held  by  many  as  to 
the  danger  of  governments  becoming  weakened  and 
destroyed  by  reason  of  their  extension  of  territory. 
Commerce,  education,  and  rapid  transit  of  thought 
and  matter  by  telegraph  and  steam  have  changed  all 
this.  Rather  do  I  believe  that  our  Great  Maker  is 
preparing  the  world,  in  his  own  good  time,  to  become 
one  nation,  speaking  one  language,  and  when  armies 
and  navies  will  be  no  longer  required." 

The  big  results  of  an  episode  futile  in  itself  soon 
began  to  show.  Motley,  continuing  in  office  months 
beyond  the  time  set  for  his  resignation,  was  finally,  in 
December,  1871,  subjected  to  the  humiliation  of  a 
summary  recall,  and  Robert  C.  Schenck,  of  Ohio,  a 
person  of  entirely  different  type,  was  named  for 
London  in  his  place,  Frelinghuysen  and  Morton 
having  both  previously  declined  the  appointment. 
Motley's  last  official  act  was  to  write  a  controver 
sial  history  of  his  mission,  for  the  Secretary  of  State, 
an  earnest  defense  of  his  conduct  in  office  and  a  crit 
icism  of  his  official  superiors.  He  referred  in  this  to 
the  rumor  that  his  removal  was  due  to  Sumner's 


332  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

opposition  to  the  San  Domingo  treaty.  Fish  in  his 
reply,  which  bears  internal  evidence  of  having  been 
written  by  another  for  his  signature,  asserted  that 
this  rumor  had  its  origin  in  Washington  "in  a  source 
bitterly,  personally,  and  vindictively  hostile  to  the 
President." 

And  then  follows  a  passage  which,  when  it  came  to 
Sumner's  eyes  on  the  publication  of  the  correspond 
ence,  angered  him  beyond  restraint  as  a  gross  and 
wanton  insult.  "Mr.  Motley  must  know  —  or  if  he 
does  not  know  it  he  stands  alone  in  his  ignorance  of 
the  fact  —  that  many  Senators  opposed  the  San  Do 
mingo  treaty  openly,  generously,  and  with  as  much 
efficiency  as  did  the  distinguished  Senator  to  whom  he 
refers  and  have  nevertheless  continued  to  enjoy  the 
undiminished  confidence  and  the  friendship  of  the 
President,  than  whom  no  man  living  is  more  tolerant 
of  honest  and  manly  differences  of  opinion;  is  more 
single  or  sincere  in  his  desire  for  the  public  welfare, 
or  more  disinterested  or  regardless  of  what  concerns 
himself;  is  more  frank  and  confiding  in  his  own  deal 
ings;  is  more  sensitive  to  a  betrayal  of  confidence  or 
would  look  with  more  scorn  and  contempt  upon  one  who 
uses  the  words  and  the  assurances  of  friendship  to  cover 
a  secret  and  determined  purpose  of  hostility." 

On  January  9  this  correspondence  was  sent  to  the 
Senate.  Sumner  up  to  that  time,  in  spite  of  his  aliena- 


THE   SAN   DOMINGO   TRAGEDY          333 

tion  from  Grant,  had  continued  in  friendly  personal 
relations  with  Fish.  Within  a  fortnight  he  had  dined 
at  Fish's  home.  When  he  read  this  passage,  which  he 
not  unreasonably  applied  to  himself,  his  wrath  was 
hot.  He  felt  that  he  had  been  betrayed  by  a  pre 
tended  friend.  From  that  time  he  had  only  formal 
relations  with  Fish.  It  was  on  January  15,  only  a 
week  later,  that  Fish  had  to  seek  the  interview  with 
regard  to  the  mission  of  Sir  John  Rose  through  the 
mediation  of  a  common  friend.  Thereafter  Sumner 
was  ignored  by  the  Administration  in  handling  ques 
tions  of  diplomacy.  Grant  had  set  his  heart  on  being 
rid  of  him. 

A  new  Congress  came  into  being  on  the  4th  of 
March.  When  the  Senate  entered  on  the  task  of 
organizing  its  committees,  the  supporters  of  the 
Administration  served  notice  that  Sumner  should  be 
deposed  from  his  position  at  the  head  of  the  Com 
mittee  on  Foreign  Relations.  The  Massachusetts 
Senator  had  few  real  friends  among  his  associates. 
His  manner  for  years  had  been  overbearing.  Adams 
says  that,  while  not  exacting  deference,  "habitual  def 
erence  was  essential  to  his  good-will."  Those  who, 
had^he  been  of  different  temper,  might  have  sus 
tained  him,  now  left  him  to  his  fate.  Thenceforward, 
he  pursued  Grant  without  mercy.  His  vehement  de 
nunciation  inspired  others  to  unsparing  criticism, 


334  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

and  who  can  say  how  far  the  impressions  of  writers 
of  history  may  have  been  due  to  him?  Yet  Grant 
said  to  Lowell  years  later  at  Madrid:  "Sumner  is 
the  only  man  I  was  ever  anything  but  my  real  self  to; 
the  only  man  I  ever  tried  to  conciliate  by  artificial 
means."  A  curious  comment. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 

THE  CUBAN  PROBLEM  —  SOUND  FINANCE— 
"BLACK  FRIDAY" 

OVER  half  of  Grant's  inaugural  was  devoted  to  a  dis 
cussion  of  the  nation's  financial  credit.  Four  other 
topics  were  treated.  He  pledged  himself  to  enforce 
all  laws  for  the  security  of  "person,  property,  and 
free  religion,  and  political  opinion  in  every  part  of 
our  common  country  without  regard  to  local  preju 
dice,"  an  unmistakable  warning  to  the  lawless  ele 
ment  in  the  South.  He  declared  that  he  would  favor 
any  course  toward  the  Indians  which  would  tend  to 
their  civilization  and  ultimate  citizenship,  the  first  of 
our  Presidents  to  take  such  advanced  position.  He 

expressed  a  desire  for  the  ratification  of  the  Fifteenth 

t 
Amendment  to  the  Constitution,  giving  to  the  negro 

the  right  of  suffrage,  a  wish  fulfilled  in  the  first  year  of 
his  Administration. 

Grant  in  his  inaugural  enunciated  his  foreign 
policy  in  a  few  robust  and  pregnant  sentences,  the 
sturdy  tone  of  which  carried  throughout  his  entire 
Administration.  "I  would  deal  with  nations  as 
equitable  law  requires  individuals  to  deal  with  each 
other,  and  I  would  protect  the  law-abiding  citizen, 
whether  of  native  or  foreign  birth,  wherever  his 


336  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

rights  are  jeopardized,  or  the  flag  of  our  country 
floats.  I  would  respect  the  rights  of  all  nations,  de 
manding  equal  respect  for  our  own.  If  others  de 
part  from  this  rule  in  their  dealings  with  us,  we  may 
be  compelled  to  follow  their  precedent." 

The  spirit  of  this  declaration  pervaded  and  gal 
vanized  our  treatment  of  Great  Britain  and  Canada 
in  the  Alabama  claims  and  the  fisheries  and  boundary 
disputes;  of  Spain  in  her  relations  with  Cuba  and  in 
the  Virginius  affair;  of  Mexico  and  the  South  and 
Central  American  Republics  in  the  maintenance  of 
the  Monroe  Doctrine. 

We  have  seen  how  delicately  the  British  and  San 
Domingan  questions  were  interlaced.  The  Cuban 
problem  was  a  third  thread  in  the  skein. 

While  Fish,  with  the  aid  of  Rose,  was  trying  to 
bring  about  a  renewal  of  negotiations  with  Great 
Britain,  Grant  had  turned  his  attention  to  the  West 
Indies  where  Cuba  and  San  Domingo  filled  for  the 
moment  the  field  of  vision.  Spectacularly  the  rapid 
developments  in  the  Antilles  counted  for  more  than 
the  deft  and  cautious  diplomatic  approaches  between 
our  State  Department  and  the  British  Foreign 
Office,  but  Fish  retained  throughout  a  sense  of  inter 
national  proportion.  He  did  not  personally  approve 
Grant's  course  in  San  Domingo  and  felt  it  necessary 
to  moderate  his  chief's  desire  to  meddle  in  the  Cuban 


THE   CUBAN   PROBLEM  337 

insurrection,  but  so  long  as  he  had  a  clear  path  in 
what  he  deemed  the  greater  problem,  he  was  content 
in  general  to  let  Grant  have  his  way  without  the  risk 
of  strained  relations  through  offering  unasked  ad 
vice.  There  was  much  interest  throughout  the  North, 
especially  in  New  York  financial  circles,  in  the  Cuban 
revolutionists,  who  had  appealed  to  our  Government 
for  aid  and  had  enlisted  in  their  cause  the  sympa 
thetic  Rawlins,  now  Secretary  of  War, 

Grant  was  strongly  inclined  to  Rawlins's  view,  and 
as  early  as  June  9, 1869,  he  asked  Sumner  about  issu 
ing  a  proclamation  according  belligerent  rights  to 
the  insurgents,  thus  doing  unto  Spain  as  Spain  had 
done  to  us  at  the  beginning  of  the  Civil  War.  Sum 
ner  advised  against  it,  but  Grant  stuck  to  his  idea, 
and  having  ordered  a  proclamation  to  be  drawn  up, 
he  signed  it  on  August  19  in  the  cabin  of  one  of  the 
Fall  River  boats  and  sent  it  to  Washington  by  the 
hand  of  Bancroft  Davis,  the  Assistant  Secretary  of 
State,  with  instructions  to  Fish  to  issue  the  procla 
mation  after  signing  it  and  affixing  the  official  seal. 
Fish,  gingerly  feeling  his  way  toward  reopening  ne 
gotiations  with  Great  Britain,  was  keenly  alive  to 
the  difficulty  involved  in  England's  recognition  of 
Confederate  belligerency,  too  great  emphasis  upon 
the  enormity  of  which  by  Sumner  threatened  to 
make  his  essay  at  negotiations  abortive. 


338  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

In  his  instructions  to  Motley  he  had  sought  to 
minimize  the  bearing  upon  our  claims  of  the  Queen's 
proclamation  of  May,  1861,  but  the  proclamation 
still  remained  an  ugly  obstacle  in  his  way,  and  he  was 
conscious  of  the  inconsistency  of  even  a  perfunc 
tory  assertion  of  our  grievance  while  we  ourselves 
might  be  upon  the  point  of  recognizing  belligerent 
rights  in  a  band  of  Cuban  guerrillas  who,  as  he  after 
wards  wrote,  "  have  no  army,  ...  no  courts,  do  not 
occupy  a  single  town  or  hamlet,  to  say  nothing  of  a 
seaport."  To  his  mind,  "  Great  Britain  or  France 
might  just  as  well  have  recognized  belligerency  for 
the  Black  Hawk  War,"  and  trusting  to  the  efficacy 
of  delay,  he  deposited  the  proclamation  in  a  safe 
place  after  signing  it,  and  left  it  there  awaiting  fur 
ther  instructions  which  never  came. 

Rawlins  died  September  6;  "  Black  Friday  "  came; 
Grant's  mind  was  fully  occupied  with  pressing  ques 
tions;  and  in  the  multiplicity  of  other  things  Fish  had 
his  way.  In  his  annual  message  of  December  6,  1869, 
the  President  contented  himself  with  disclaiming  any 
disposition  on  the  part  of  the  United  States  "  to  in 
terfere  with  the  existing  relations  of  Spain  with  her 
colonial  possessions  on  this  continent."  But  public 
feeling  was  strong  for  recognition  of  belligerency,  and 
when  Congress  met  there  was  a  growing  pressure  for 
the  passage  of  resolutions  to  that  end.  Fish  was  the 


THE   CUBAN   PROBLEM  339 

restraining  influence  at  this  time.  Had  it  not  been 
for  him  Grant  would  have  doubtless  aided  those  who 
called  for  recognition.  Fish  advised  John  Sherman, 
who  had  introduced  the  resolution  in  the  Senate,  "to 
prepare  bills  for  the  increase  of  the  public  debt,  and 
to  meet  the  increased  appropriation  which  will  be 
necessary  for  the  army,  navy,  etc."  As  the  time  for 
a  vote  in  the  House  approached,  he  impressed  on 
Grant  the  necessity  of  sending  in  a  message  empha 
sizing  the  importance  of  refraining  from  recognition, 
and  wrote  a  special  message,  which  was  sent  to  Con 
gress  on  June  17,  treating  the  whole  subject  compre 
hensively.  Fish  says  in  his  diary  that  the  President 
"was  induced  with  great  hesitation  and  with  much 
reluctance  to  sign  it,  and  after  it  was  sent  in  he  told 
me  that  he  feared  he  had  made  a  mistake.  ...  It 
evoked  a  fierce  debate,  and  much  denunciation,  but 
it  evoked  also  much  good  sense  in  the  speeches  of 
those  who  sustained  it;  an  expression  of  good  sound 
international  law,  and  of  honesty  of  purpose,  and  it 
brought  the  gravity  of  the  case  to  the  consideration 
of  Congress;  and  the  Administration,  after  the  sever 
est  debate  on  a  question  of  foreign  policy  which  has 
occurred  for  years,  was  triumphantly  sustained." 

Of  impressive  immediate  effect  was  the  clear  dec 
laration  with  regard  to  upholding  the  public  credit. 
"A  great  debt  has  been  contracted  by  us  in  securing 


340  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

to  us  and  our  posterity  the  Union,"  said  Grant. 
"The  payment  of  this  principal  and  interest,  as  well 
as  the  return  to  a  specie  basis  as  soon  as  it  can  be 
accomplished  without  material  detriment  to  the 
debtor  class  or  to  the  country  at  large,  must  be 
provided  for.  To  protect  the  national  honor  every 
dollar  of  government  indebtedness  should  be  paid 
in  gold,  unless  otherwise  expressly  stipulated  in  the 
contract.  Let  it  be  understood  that  no  repudiator  of 
one  farthing  of  our  public  debt  will  be  trusted  in 
public  place  and  it  will  go  far  toward  strengthening  a 
credit  which  ought  to  be  the  best  in  the  world,  and 
will  ultimately  enable  us  to  replace  the  debt  with 
bonds  bearing  less  interest  than  we  now  pay.  To  this 
should  be  added  a  faithful  collection  of  the  revenue,  a 
strict  accountability  to  the  treasury  for  every  dollar 
collected,  and  the  greatest  practical  retrenchment  in 
expenditure  in  every  department  of  government." 

It  required  some  courage  for  the  President  and  the 
Republican  Party  to  take  this  attitude,  for  there  was 
a  strong  sentiment  in  the  country  in  favor  of  the  pay 
ment  of  five-twenty  bonds  in  greenbacks  and  a  large 
issue  of  greenbacks  for  that  purpose.  A  considerable 
party  had  come  into  being  in  support  of  this  proposal, 
and  the  feeling  had  been  accentuated  by  the  rapid 
contraction  of  United  States  notes  following  the  Civil 
War,  $140,000,000  out  of  $737,000,000  having  been 


SOUND   FINANCE  341 

withdrawn  in  the  two  years  preceding  1868.  Johnson, 
although  he  had  at  his  elbow  in  Secretary  McCulloch 
one  of  the  soundest  of  financial  ministers,  had  extra 
ordinary  ideas  personally  about  the  repudiation  of 
interest  on  government  bonds,  which  found  expression 
in  his  last  annual  message;  and  the  fact  that,  following 
the  London  panic  of  May,  1866,  business  had  been  in 
a  bad  way,  with  a  decrease  in  the  value  of  property 
and  an  increase  in  the  face  value  of  debts,  was  popu 
larly  attributed  to  the  contraction  of  the  currency. 
Yet  there  was  no  hesitancy  on  the  part  of  the  new 
Administration . 

The  Republicans  in  the  platform  upon  which  Grant 
was  elected  had  denounced  all  forms  of  repudiation 
as  a  national  crime  and  declared  that  the  national 
honor  required  the  payment  of  the  public  indebted 
ness  "in  the  uttermost  good  faith  to  all  creditors  at 
home  and  abroad  not  only  according  to  the  letter  but 
the  spirit  of  the  laws";  and  the  very  first  act  of  the 
Congress  which  came  into  existence  on  March  4, 
1869,  was  a  law  "to  strengthen  the  public  credit," 
which,  after  passing  both  House  and  Senate  over 
whelmingly,  was  signed  by  Grant  on  March  18.  The 
law  solemnly  pledged  the  faith  of  the  United  States  to 
the  payment,  in  gold  or  its  equivalent,  of  the  United 
States  notes  and  all  the  United  States  bonds  except 
in  those  cases  where  the  law  authorizing  their  issue 


342  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

provided  expressly  for  their  payment  in  "other  cur 
rency  than  gold  and  silver."  By  the  words  of  the  law 
the  United  States  also  solemnly  pledged  its  faith  "to 
make  provision  at  the  earliest  practicable  period  for 
the  redemption  of  the  United  States  notes  in  coin." 

The  episode  which  has  come  down  in  history  as 
the  "Gold  Conspiracy,"  with  "Black  Friday"  as  its 
demoralizing  climax,  throws  light  not  only  upon 
Grant's  ingenuousness,  but  also  on  the  fashions  of 
the  hour.  At  the  time  of  Grant's  accession  to  the 
Presidency  the  two  spectacular  figures  in  New  York 
financial  circles  were  Jay  Gould  and  James  Fisk, 
Jr.,—  "Jim"  Fisk  as  he  was  popularly  known. 
Gould  was  the  shrewdest,  most  subtle  and  ruthless 
trader  and  manipulator  in  the  Street  —  a  railroad 
wrecker  after  the  manner  of  his  day,  with  an  extra 
ordinary  genius  for  getting  money;  slight  in  figure, 
reticent,  keen  of  face,  of  a  Semitic  type.  Fisk,  his 
partner  in  many  deals,  was  a  speculator  of  another 
sort,  big,  coarse,  florid  in  complexion,  dress,  and 
speech,  a  daring  gambler  for  heavy  stakes,  a  high 
liver,  unscrupulous  in  his  financial  operations,  im 
moral  in  his  daily  and  nightly  life. 

These  two,  so  strikingly  contrasted  in  everything 
except  their  passion  for  speculation  and  financial 
power,  had  combined  their  diverse  talents  in  1868  to 
gain  control  of  the  Erie  Railroad.  They  played  with 


BLACK   FRIDAY  343 

power  as  though  it  were  a  toy.  They  flaunted  their 
control  by  putting  on  the  board  of  directors  "Boss" 
Tweed  and  Peter  B.  Sweeney,  the  chieftains  of  Tam 
many  Hall. 

Gould  and  Fisk  also  owned  steamers,  palatial  for 
that  day,  plying  between  New  York  and  Fall  River, 
a  fleet  of  which  Fisk  liked  to  be  called  Admiral,  and 
in  command  of  which  he  would  float  up  Long  Island 
Sound  with  bands  playing  and  flags  flying.  Gould 
had  a  project  to  advance  the  price  of  gold  till  wheat 
should  reach  a  price  which  would  induce  the  farmers 
of  the  West  to  seek  the  English  market  with  their 
breads  tuffs,  thus  causing  a  movement  of  crops  to 
the  seaboard,  which  meant  plenty  of  freight  for  the 
Erie  road. 

In  the  early  summer  of  1869  gold  was  heavy  at 
$1.34.  There  had  been  little  change  for  months.  To 
manipulate  the  market  Gould  needed  a  free  hand; 
but  he  had  to  reckon  with  the  Treasury  gold  re 
serve,  and  Secretary  Boutwell  had  his  own  ideas 
about  the  course  gold  ought  to  take.  He  had  been 
selling  gold  ever  since  he  took  office,  setting  free 
$2,500,000  each  month,  thus  bringing  greenbacks 
nearer  the  gold  level. 

Gould's  problem  was  to  stop  the  sales  of  gold, 
and  to  this  end  he  laid  the  wires  to  get  in  touch  with 
Boutwell's  superior.  Abel  Rathbone  Corbin,  aged 


344  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

sixty-seven,  retired  speculator,  lobby  agent,  editor, 
and  lawyer,  recently  married  to  Grant's  sister,  was 
living  in  New  York.  Gould  used  him  to  secure  an 
introduction.  On  June  15,  1869,  Grant  visited  New 
York  on  his  way  to  the  Peace  Jubilee  at  Boston.  He 
stayed  at  Corbin's  house;  Gould  met  him  there. 

Gould  and  Fisk  invited  Grant  to  continue  his 
journey  to  Boston  as  their  guest  on  one  of  the  Fall 
River  boats,  and  on  the  run  up  the  Sound  they  led 
the  conversation  at  dinner  around  to  the  subject  of 
finance.  "Some  one,"  Gould  testified  in  the  inves 
tigation  which  followed  the  cataclysm,  "asked  the 
President  what  his  view  was,"  and  to  the  consterna 
tion  of  the  conspirators  Grant  replied  bluntly  that 
"there  was  a  certain  amount  of  fictitiousness  about 
the  prosperity  of  the  country  and  that  the  bubble 
might  as  well  be  tapped  in  one  way  as  another." 

There  was  a  vacancy  in  the  position  of  Assistant 
Treasurer  of  the  United  States  at  New  York,  the 
custodian  of  the  greatest  deposit  of  gold  in  the  coun 
try.  The  place  was  filled  on  July  1  by  the  appoint 
ment  of  General  Daniel  Butterfield,  upon  whose 
cooperation  Gould  felt  he  could  rely.  Gould  did 
nothing  to  influence  the  market  till  the  time  for  the 
movement  of  the  crops  approached.  But  in  the  last 
ten  days  of  August,  through  a  pool  which  he  formed 
with  two  other  large  speculators,  he  bought  from  ten 


BLACK   FRIDAY  345 

to  fifteen  millions  of  gold  without,  however,  materi 
ally  increasing  the  premium. 

On  September  2,  Grant,  quite  oblivious  to  what 
was  going  on,  passed  through  New  York  on  his 
way  to  Saratoga,  and  stayed  a  few  hours  at  Cor- 
bin's  house,  seeing  no  one  else  while  there.1  In  the 
course  of  conversation  Grant  became  convinced  of 
the  soundness  of  Gould's  theory  about  marketing 
the  crops,  as  expounded  by  Corbin.  He  stopped  in 
the  middle  of  a  conversation  in  which  he  had  ex 
pressed  his  views  and  wrote  a  letter  to  Secretary 
Boutwell.  Before  he  had  left  the  house  the  pur 
port  of  this  letter  undoubtedly  was  communicated 
to  Gould,  who  called  privately  upon  Corbin  with 
out  Grant's  knowledge. 

Before  a  Congressional  investigating  committee, 
Boutwell  subsequently  testified:  "I  think  on  the 
evening  of  the  4th  of  September  I  received  a  letter 
from  the  President  dated  at  New  York,  as  I  recollect 
it.  ...  In  that  letter  he  expressed  an  opinion  that 
it  was  undesirable  to  force  down  the  price  of  gold. 
He  spoke  of  the  importance  to  the  West  of  being  able 
to  move  their  crops.  .  .  .  Upon  the  receipt  of  the 
President's  letter  on  the  evening  of  the  4th  of  Sep 
tember,  I  telegraphed  to  Judge  Richardson  (Assist 
ant  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  at  Washington)  this 
1  Henry  Adams,  The  Gold  Conspiracy. 


346  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

dispatch:  'Send  no  order  to  Butterfield  as  to  sales 
of  gold  until  you  hear  from  me.'" 

Thus  Gould  had  information  that  the  policy  of  the 
Administration  with  regard  to  the  sale  of  gold  was  to 
be  reversed  fully  a  day  before  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  himself.  He  lost  no  time  in  taking  ad 
vantage  of  his  opportunity.  Before  leaving  Corbin's 
house,  he  had  agreed  to  carry  a  million  and  a  half  of 
gold  as  Cor  bin  testified  later  "for  the  sake  of  a  lady, 
my  wife."  That  same  afternoon  his  brokers  began 
buying  gold  in  large  quantities.  By  the  time  Bout- 
well  received  his  letter  on  September  4,  1869,  the  pre 
mium  had  risen  from  32  to  37.  Then  the  bears  began 
to  sell  short.  One  of  Gould's  associates  in  the  pool  de 
serted  him.  The  market  broke.  Corbin  made  Gould 
pay  him  twenty-five  thousand  dollars  on  account. 
Gold  settled  down  to  35  and  lingered  there  for  a  week. 
Then  Fisk,  at  Gould's  suggestion,  went  in  to  buy. 

Gould  placed  a  million  and  a  half  to  Butterfield's 
account  and  half  a  million  to  the  credit  of  General 
Horace  Porter,  the  President's  private  secretary, 
sending  word  to  them  through  Corbin.  Porter  re 
pudiated  the  purchase  promptly.  Butterfield  took 
no  notice  of  the  transaction.  After  the  storm  broke, 
though  he  denied  that  he  was  ever  notified  of  the 
transaction,  so  great  was  the  scandal  that  he  was 
forced  to  resign. 


BLACK   FRIDAY  347 

From  the  10th  to  the  13th  of  September,  Grant 
was  again  in  New  York  and  Gould  saw  him  at  Cor- 
bin's  house,  though  the  President  by  that  time  had 
become  suspicious  of  the  motives  of  the  financier;  for 
according  to  Corbin  he  told  the  servant  this  should 
be  the  last  time  Gould  should  be  admitted.  "Gould 
was  always  trying  to  get  something  out  of  him."  It  is 
a  pity  he  did  not  earlier  shut  the  door  in  Gould's  face. 

Plainly  he  had  given  no  definite  assurance  regard 
ing  his  policy,  for  when  he  left  on  the  13th  for  a  few 
days'  stay  in  the  little  town  of  Washington  among 
the  mountains  of  western  Pennsylvania,  the  con 
spirators  in  their  anxiety,  through  the  complaisant 
Corbin,  chased  him  up.  They  had  bought  over  fifty 
millions  and  had  forced  the  market  up  to  40  in  spite 
of  the  increased  activity  of  the  bears.  They  did  not 
dare  let  go  for  fear  of  a  collapse.  It  was  vital  to  them 
that  the  President  should  not  direct  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury  to  resume  the  sale  of  gold.  Corbin 
wrote  a  letter  advising  him  to  maintain  his  present 
attitude  regarding  the  sale  of  gold,  which  Fisk  sent 
speedily  by  a  special  messenger  to  reach  him  before 
his  return  to  the  White  House.  In  order  to  insure 
its  immediate  delivery  the  messenger  carried  also  a 
letter  of  introduction  to  Horace  Porter.  It  was  not 
till  after  the  messenger  had  gone  that  Grant  discov 
ered  the  elaborate  precautions  to  insure  the  prompt 


348  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

delivery  of  an  apparently  unimportant  communica 
tion.  His  suspicions  were  roused.  At  his  request  Mrs. 
Grant  wrote  that  night  to  Mrs.  Corbin  that  the  Presi 
dent  was  distressed  to  hear  that  Corbin  was  speculat 
ing  in  Wall  Street  and  hoped  he  would  "instantly 
disconnect  himself  with  anything  of  that  sort." 

Corbin  wrote  at  once  to  Grant  that  he  had  not  a 
dollar  interest  in  gold  —  a  letter  which  with  the  other 
he  promptly  showed  to  Gould  who  saw  him  daily, 
suggesting  in  order  to  make  good  the  assurance  to  his 
brother-in-law  that  Gould  should  give  him  one  hun 
dred  thousand  dollars  and  take  his  gold  off  his  hands. 
Gould,  who  had  all  the  gold  he  could  stagger  under 
just  then,  declined  the  proposal,  but  offered  him  one 
hundred  thousand  dollars  to  stay  in  and  not  throw 
his  million  and  a  half  on  the  market.  Corbin  refused, 
and  then,  realizing  that  an  order  to  sell  might  come 
from  the  Treasury  at  any  moment,  Gould  hurried 
down  to  Wall  Street. 

Fisk,  still  supposing  that  Grant  was  following  the 
advice  in  Corbin's  letter,  was  buying  wildly.  The 
market  bounded  to  162.  The  bears  were  dazed  and 
at  the  mercy  of  the  new  Napoleon  of  the  Street,  when 
Gould  without  warning  began  to  sell  —  the  bubble 
burst.  The  Street  was  in  a  state  of  excitement  with 
out  a  precedent  in  all  its  checkered  history.  Within 
a  few  minutes  gold  had  fallen  to  135.  The  Treasury 


BLACK   FRIDAY  349 

wired  its  order  to  sell,  which  Gould  had  been  expect 
ing,  but  which  Fisk  had  not  surmised.  Gould  had  got 
rid  of  his  gold  and  his  brokers'  firm  were  able  to  meet 
their  contracts;  but  not  so  with  Fisk.  He  repudiated 
all  but  one.  Their  victims  turned  on  them  in  wrath. 
They  escaped  by  back  entrances  to  their  uptown 
office,  while  armed  guards  beat  back  the  ruined  trad 
ers  storming  at  their  downtown  doors.  There  have 
been  no  scenes  to  equal  this  in  Wall  Street  before 
or  since.  It  was  Friday,  September  24, 1869,  "Black 
Friday." 

The  punishment  of  the  conspirators  did  not  fit  the 
crime.  Fisk  and  Gould  continued  in  control  of  Erie,  a 
little  more  discredited.  Butterfield  was  permitted  to 
resign.  In  addition  to  letting  Gould  carry  his  gold  for 
him  he  had  borrowed  money  from  him  and  had  spec 
ulated  in  government  bonds.  Brother-in-law  Corbin, 
his  dreams  of  fortune  shattered,  retired  to  Washing 
ton,  where  he  was  not  made  uproariously  welcome  in 
the  President's  house,  though  he  was  not  cast  adrift. 
He  had  accomplished  nothing  through  his  plunge  in 
high  finance,  except  to  set  malicious  tongues  wagging. 


CHAPTER  XXXV 
THE  LEGAL  TENDER  DECISION 

WHEN  Congress  met  in  December,  1869,  with  the 
financial  disturbances  still  unsettled,  the  President 
in  his  first  annual  message  urged  upon  its  attention 
the  evil  of  an  unredeemable  currency,  repeating  the 
sentiments  expressed  in  his  inaugural.  "It  is  the 
duty,  and  one  of  the  highest  duties  of  Government,'* 
he  said,  "to  secure  to  the  citizen  a  medium  of  fixed, 
unvarying  value.  This  implies  a  return  to  a  specie 
basis  and  no  substitute  for  it  can  be  devised.  It 
should  be  commenced  now  and  reached  at  the  earli 
est  practicable  moment  consistent  with  a  fair  regard 
to  the  interests  of  the  debtor  class."  He  earnestly 
recommended  such  legislation  as  would  insure  a  grad 
ual  return  to  specie  payments  and  put  an  immediate 
stop  to  fluctuations  in  the  paper  value  of  the  measure 
of  all  values  (gold)  which  "makes  the  man  of  busi 
ness  an  involuntary  gambler,  for  in  all  sales  where 
future  payment  is  to  be  made  both  parties  speculate 
as  to  what  will  be  the  value  of  the  currency  to  be  paid 
and  received." 

At  the  time  the  national  debt  was  $2,453,000,000. 
It  had  been  decreased  since  March  1  by  $71,903,000. 


THE   LEGAL   TENDER   DECISION         351 

There  had  been  set  aside  for  the  sinking  fund 
$20,000,000  of  bonds,  to  comply  with  the  law  of 
1862,  that  one  per  cent  of  the  entire  debt  should  be 
set  apart  annually  for  this  purpose.  Boutwell,  who, 
though  endowed  with  little  financial  imagination, 
had  economic  common  sense  and  thrift,  concerned 
himself  first  of  all  throughout  his  administration  of 
the  Treasury  in  the  reduction  of  the  national  debt,  a 
policy  which  helped  our  credit  at  home  and  abroad, 
resulting  in  a  total  reduction  during  Grant's  two 
Administrations  of  nearly  a  billion  dollars. 

Boutwell  bought  the  five-twenty  bonds  carrying 
six  per  cent  interest  and  sold  four  and  one-half  per 
cent  bonds  in  a  refunding  plan  elaborated  by  himself. 
He  strove  for  the  resumption  of  specie  payments,  and 
in  his  first  report  asked  for  authority  to  retire  at  his 
discretion  two  millions  of  greenbacks  every  month; 
but  Congress  failed  to  give  him  this  power  to  contract 
the  currency,  a  policy  which  had  not  been  popular 
since  McCulloch  in  Johnson's  Administration  had 
retired  forty -four  million  dollars  of  greenbacks  before 
further  contraction  was  suspended  by  Congress  in 
February,  1868.  The  contraction  from  McCulloch's 
retirement  of  greenbacks  and  from  the  withdrawal 
and  funding  of  the  compound  interest  legal  tender 
notes  had  undoubtedly  been  too  drastic  treatment  at 
a  time  when  the  country  was  none  too  prosperous. 


352  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Morton,  of  Indiana,  called  it  the  "Sangrado  policy 
of  bleeding  the  country  nearly  to  death  to  cure  it  of 
a  disease  which  demands  tonics  and  building  up." 

Hardly  had  Grant's  message  of  December,  1869, 
gone  to  the  country  before  the  whole  currency  ques 
tion  was  brought  vividly  to  the  notice  of  the  people, 
through  the  decision  of  the  United  States  Supreme 
Court  in  the  case  of  Hepburn  vs.  Griswold,  that  the 
Legal  Tender  Act,  under  which  the  greenbacks  were 
authorized  at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  was  uncon 
stitutional.  The  opinion  of  the  court  was  handed 
down  on  February  7,  1870,  by  Chief  Justice  Chase, 
under  whose  administration  as  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  the  law  had  been  enacted.  He  now  argued 
that  the  act  impaired  the  obligation  of  contracts  and 
was  inconsistent  with  the  spirit  of  the  Constitution; 
that  it  deprived  persons  of  property  without  due 
process  of  law,  by  forcing  creditors  to  accept  dollars 
of  less  value  than  those  which  were  lent  or  which  by 
the  terms  of  the  contract  they  had  a  right  to  expect  in 
payment  of  claims.  "We  are  obliged  to  conclude," 
said  Chase  as  Chief  Justice,  "that  an  act  [fathered  by 
Chase  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury]  making  mere 
promises  to  pay  dollars  as  legal  tender  in  payment  of 
debts  previously  contracted,  is  not  a  means  appropri 
ate,  plainly  adapted,  really  calculated,  to  carry  into 
effect  any  express  power  vested  in  Congress;  that 


THE   LEGAL   TENDER   DECISION         353 

such  an  act  is  inconsistent  with  the  spirit  of  the  Con 
stitution;  and  that  it  is  prohibited  by  the  Constitu 
tion." 

Justice  Miller,  one  of  the  ablest  jurists  who  ever 
sat  on  the  Supreme  Bench,  delivered  the  opinion  of 
the  minority  of  the  court.  After  quoting  Chief  Jus 
tice  Marshall,  he  said:  "  With  the  credit  of  the  Gov 
ernment  nearly  exhausted  and  the  resources  of  tax 
ation  inadequate  to  pay  even  the  interest  on  the 
public  debt,  Congress  was  called  on  to  devise  some 
new  means  of  borrowing  money  on  the  credit  of  the 
nation;  for  the  result  of  the  war  was  conceded  by  all 
thoughtful  men  to  depend  on  the  capacity  of  the  Gov 
ernment  to  raise  money  in  amounts  previously  un 
known.  .  .  .  The  coin  in  the  country  .  .  .  would  not 
have  made  a  circulation  sufficient  to  answer  army 
purchases.  ...  A  general  collapse  of  credit,  of  pay 
ment,  and  of  business  seemed  inevitable,  in  which 
faith  in  the  ability  of  the  Government  would  have 
been  destroyed,  the  rebellion  would  have  triumphed, 
the  States  would  have  been  left  divided,  and  the 
people  impoverished.  The  National  Government 
would  have  perished,  and  with  it  the  Constitution 
which  we  are  now  called  upon  to  construe  with  such 
nice  and  critical  accuracy.  .  .  ." 

The  court  was  divided  in  its  decision  as  handed 
down,  four  to  three:  Nelson,  Clifford,  and  Field 


354  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

siding  with  Chase,  while  Swayne  and  Davis  agreed 
with  Miller.  Grier,  who  had  sat  with  the  court  when 
it  first  came  to  its  decision  on  November  27,  1869, 
and  had  then  pronounced  in  favor  of  the  constitu 
tionality  of  the  act,  had  resigned  before  the  announce 
ment  of  the  decision  on  February  7,  by  unanimous 
request  of  the  other  justices,  his  senile  incompetency 
having  disclosed  itself  in  the  mean  time  through  his 
statement  in  another  case  of  an  opinion  inconsistent 
with  his  position  on  the  Legal  Tender  case,  and  his 
prompt  reversal  of  his  Legal  Tender  opinion  when 
the  inconsistency  was  called  to  his  attention.  There 
were  two  vacancies  on  the  bench  on  the  day  the  de 
cision  was  handed  down.  Wayne  had  died  and  Grier 
had  resigned.  E.  R.  Hoar,  who  had  been  nominated 
for  one  of  the  places,  had  been  rejected  by  the  Senate 
four  days  earlier.  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  who  had  been 
nominated  for  the  other  vacancy  and  promptly  con 
firmed  on  December  20,  had  died  four  days  after  his 
confirmation. 

It  happened  that  on  the  very  day  the  decision  was 
handed  down  Grant  sent  to  the  Senate  the  names 
of  William  Strong,  of  Pennsylvania,  and  Joseph  P. 
Bradley,  of  New  Jersey.  Subsequently,  two  other 
cases  known  as  the  Legal  Tender  cases  were  brought 
before  the  court.  A  decision  affirming  the  consti 
tutionality  of  the  acts  and  overruling  the  former 


THE   LEGAL   TENDER   DECISION         355 

decision  was  reached  and  announced  on  May  1, 
1871.  The  opinion  of  the  court,  as  read  by  Justice 
Strong  at  the  following  term,  on  January  15,  1872, 
declared  that  "we  hold  the  acts  of  Congress  con 
stitutional  as  applied  to  contracts  made  either  before 
or  after  their  passage.  In  so  holding  we  overrule  so 
much  of  what  was  decided  in  Hepburn  vs.  Griswold 
as  ruled  the  acts  unwarranted  by  the  Constitution  so 
far  as  they  apply  to  contracts  made  before  their 
enactment." 

The  coincidence  of  the  appointment  of  these  two 
justices,  and  the  speedy  reversal  of  the  attitude  of  the 
court  on  the  constitutionality  of  the  Legal  Tender 
Acts,  led  not  unnaturally  to  the  conclusion  in  many 
minds,  that  Strong  and  Bradley  had  been  named  for 
this  specific  purpose,  and  Chief  Justice  Chase,  by  in 
direction,  gave  color  to  the  charge  that  the  court  had 
been  packed  in  order  to  reverse  the  earlier  decision 
in  which  he  had  participated.  For  many  years  this 
suspicion  lurked  in  the  public  consciousness,  and 
the. motives  of  Grant  and  Attorney-General  Hoar, 
on  whose  recommendation  the  appointments  were 
made,  have  been  frequently  called  in  question. 

There  is  no  ground  whatever  for  the  charge.  Sena 
tor  George  F.  Hoar,  loyally  defending  the  memory 
of  his  brother,  replied  to  it  conclusively,  with  great 
detail  of  circumstance,  in  a  letter  which  appeared 


356  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

in  the  "Boston  Herald"  in  1896  and  which  after 
wards  was  printed  as  a  pamphlet,  but  it  did  not 
require  this  marshaling  of  proof  to  clear  the  records 
of  the  President  and  his  Attorney-General.  The  va 
cancies  were  there ;  they  had  to  be  filled  at  that  time ; 
and  there  was  every  reason  why  a  Republican  Presi 
dent  should  fill  them  with  Republicans,  as  four  of  the 
seven  justices  had  Democratic  affiliations,  Chase 
having  been  a  candidate  for  the  Democratic  nomina 
tion  for  President  less  than  two  years  before.  It 
would  have  been  hard  to  find  a  Republican  judge  or 
lawyer  of  prominence  who  was  less  likely  than  Strong 
and  Bradley  to  favor  the  constitutionality  of  the  Le 
gal  Tender  Acts,  and  there  is  not  the  slightest  evi 
dence  that,  when  Strong  and  Bradley  were  decided 
upon  by  the  President  and  the  Attorney-General 
and  approved  by  the  Cabinet,  any  one  of  them  had  an 
inkling  of  what  the  decision  of  the  court  was  to  be. 
Grant  did  not  "pack  the  court." 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

BITTER  PROBLEMS  —  THE  SOUTH  —  THE  NEGRO  — 
ENFORCEMENT  ACTS 

IT  was  Grant's  misfortune  to  inherit  the  problem  of 
the  negro  and  the  South  in  its  most  sordid  and  repul 
sive  phase.  The  tragical  blunders  of  Reconstruction, 
which  under  the  pressure  of  political  necessity  he  had 
half-heartedly  consented  to  in  their  incipiency  in 
Johnson's  Administration,  bloomed  noxiously  in  his 
own.  He  had  been  sincerely  the  friend  of  the  South  at 
the  close  of  the  Civil  War,  and  he  was  genuinely  in 
favor  of  restoring  promptly  to  the  conquered  Con 
federates  the  full  rights  of  citizenship.  He  was 
brought  by  force  of  circumstances  to  accept  the  full 
measure  of  negro  suffrage  as  an  unwelcome  reprisal 
for  Johnson's  stubbornness;  but  he  did  not  regard  it 
as  inconsistent  with  his  honest  aspirations  for  a  fully 
reunited  country.  "  Let  us  have  peace  "  as  he  penned 
it  was  not  an  empty  phrase;  yet  it  fell  to  him  as 
President  to  secure  what  peace  was  feasible  only 
through  apprehension  of  the  sword,  to  quell  internal 
violence  by  show  of  force.  Threats  of  turbulence  and 
bloodshed  in  the  South  marked  the  entire  period  of 
Grant's  occupancy  of  the  White  House;  and  with 


358  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

sanction  of  Congress  he  was  driven  more  than 
once  to  measures  not  contemplated  by  the  Consti 
tution. 

The  black  record  of  carpet-bag  and  scalawag  po 
litical  control  of  Southern  States,  through  misuse  of 
the  negro  vote,  is  an  ugly  picture  to  look  back  on. 
The  work  of  the  Ku-Klux  Klans  and  the  White 
Leagues  was  equally  deplorable,  unworthy  of  a  proud 
spirited  race  and  inexcusable  even  in  the  distressing 
circumstances  which  inspired  them.  The  former 
slaves  who  reveled  ostentatiously  in  unsought  oppor 
tunities  were  not  the  best  representatives  of  their 
race,  but  they  were  victims  in  a  measure  of  Northern 
zealots,  who  fatuously  dreamed  that  the  poor,  un 
lettered,  childlike  creatures  could  be  at  once  regen 
erated  by  the  baptism  of  the  franchise. 

Neither  were  the  Ku-Klux  Klans  and  White 
League  ruffians  typical  of  the  South.  Those  who  at 
this  day  try  to  paint  them  so  render  poor  service  to  a 
high-spirited,  nobly  nurtured  people.  The  outrages, 
riots,  and  murders  which  figured  so  conspicuously  in 
Grant's  Administration  were  as  a  rule  the  work  of  the 
lower  class  of  whites,  and  in  justice  to  the  South 
should  be  so  credited,  exactly  as  the  political  misrule 
of  the  carpet-baggers  should  not  be  attributed  to 
those  thrifty  Northern  settlers  whose  purpose  in 
leaving  their  homes  was  to  help  restore  a  war- 


BITTER   PROBLEMS  359 

shattered  territory  and  to  participate  in  its  renewed 
industrial  prosperity. 

The  New  Orleans  riot  of  July,  1866,  which  Sheri 
dan  characterized  as  "an  absolute  massacre,"  was 
the  first  of  the  social  disturbances  which  later  became 
too  prevalent.  It  was  natural  that  they  should  begin 
in  Louisiana;  for  this  was  the  first  of  the  Southern 
States  to  be  "reconstructed,"  and  the  great  negro 
population  thus  invited  to  participate  in  its  govern 
ment  were  largely  plantation  hands,  the  most  igno 
rant  and  vicious  of  their  race,  many  of  whom  had 
been  "sold  down  the  river"  by  their  former  masters 
for  punishment  as  desperate  characters.  Northern 
adventurers  were  speedily  on  the  ground  at  New 
Orleans,  organizing  the  freedmen  for  political  control. 
Corruption  and  legislative  orgies  on  the  one  hand  and 
violence  on  the  other  became  the  order  of  the  day. 
A  Republican  majority  of  26,000  in  the  spring  elec 
tions  of  1868  was  transformed  in  November  into  a 
majority  of  46,000  for  Seymour  and  Blair. 

From  1868  to  1872  misgovernment  on  the  part  of 
carpet-baggers  and  negroes,  tempered  by  violence 
and  intimidation  on  the  part  of  the  white  minor 
ity,  prevailed,  not  only  in  Louisiana,  but  in  other 
States  containing  a  large  excess  of  negro  population, 
although  Virginia,  thanks  to  the  fact  that  Schofield 
had  it  long  under  military  rule,  escaped  the  invasion 


360  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

of  carpet-baggers  and  was  thus  in  Schofield's  words 
"saved  from  the  vile  government  and  spoliation 
which  cursed  the  other  Southern  States."  Bribery, 
thievery,  and  extravagance  were  commonplaces  in 
the  legislatures  and  among  state  officials.  There 
was  corruption  in  the  courts;  property  values  fell; 
taxes  were  in  arrears;  the  state  debts  soared  to  pre 
posterous  figures;  industry  was  paralyzed. 

In  Tennessee,  Georgia,  North  Carolina,  and  Vir 
ginia  conservative  forces  gradually  gained  ascend 
ancy  during  the  early  years  of  Grant's  Administra 
tion;  but  this  was  not  true  of  other  States.  In  1873, 
three  fourths  of  the  South  Carolina  Legislature  were 
negroes,  mulattoes,  and  octoroons,  the  most  present 
able  of  whom  a  few  years  earlier  were  gentlemen's 
servants,  others  of  whom  had  been  raising  corn  and 
cotton  under  the  whip  of  the  overseer.  The  State 
House  had  been  lavishly  refurnished;  clocks  and 
mirrors  costing  $600;  chairs  costing  $60;  cuspidors 
costing  $14,  had  replaced  the  simple  fittings  of  ante 
bellum  days.  A  free  restaurant  and  bar  was  kept 
open  day  and  night  for  the  convenience  of  members 
of  the  Legislature  and  their  friends.  The  public  print 
ing  bills  during  the  eight  years  of  negro  supremacy 
exceeded  by  $717,589  the  total  cost  of  printing  dur 
ing  the  seventy-eight  years  preceding.  The  total 
taxes  paid  by  all  the  members  of  one  Legislature 


BITTER   PROBLEMS  361 

were  reported  to  be  only  $634;  and  67  of  the  98  negro 
members  paid  no  tax  at  all. 

Negroes  and  carpet-baggers  were  sent  to  Congress. 
Some  of  them  were  men  of  character;  others  not. 
Men  like  Blanche  K.  Bruce,  H.  R.  Revels,  John  R. 
Lynch,  Robert  Elliott,  negroes  all,  would  do  credit 
to  any  race. 

There  is  testimony  also  to  violence  by  negroes  in 
reconstructed  States,  tales  of  burning  barns,  cotton 
gins,  and  dwellings;  of  rape  committed  upon  white 
women;  of  outrages  such  as  bestial  beings  exulting 
in  unaccustomed  license  might  be  guilty  of.  There  is 
no  evidence  that  these  things  were  as  prevalent  as 
has  been  represented;  but  they  were  sufficient  in  con 
nection  with  the  political  orgies  at  the  state  capitols 
to  rouse  the  whites  to  action.  Hence  the  increased 
activity  of  the  Ku-Klux  Klans,  the  White  Leagues, 
the  terrifying  night  raids,  the  midnight  whippings, 
the  lynchings,  and  innumerable  unspeakable  offenses, 
some  of  them  committed  for  private  vengeance  or  as 
a  method  of  political  proscription.  The  record  is  one 
of  infamy;  and  the  late  endeavor  of  a  few  Southern 
novelists,  playwrights,  and  motion-picture  producers 
to  throw  about  it  the  halo  of  righteous  retribution  and 
romance  will  make  it  nothing  else.1 

1  In  spite  of  the  notoriety  attaching  to  the  operations  of  the 
Ku-Klux  Klans,  it  should  be  remembered  that  their  operations 


362  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Thus  Grant  was  called  upon  to  meet  conditions  in 
the  South  for  which  there  was  no  parallel  or  prece 
dent  and  for  the  existence  of  which  he  was  in  no  way 

were  by  no  means  universal  in  the  South.  They  were  widely 
separated  and  their  virulence  was  confined  to  the  black  counties 
of  the  afflicted  States.  The  various  secret  organizations  seem  to 
have  had  little  more  than  incidental  relationship  among  them 
selves.  The  most  authentic  presentation  of  facts  appears  in  the 
majority  and  minority  reports  of  a  joint  committee  created  by 
resolution  of  Congress,  April  7,  1871,  consisting  of  seven  Senators 
and  fourteen  Representatives  —  thirteen  Republicans  and  eight 
Democrats  —  who  were  authorized  "  to  inquire  into  the  condition 
of  affairs  in  the  late  insurrectionary  States."  The  majority  point 
out  that  the  Ku-Klux  Klan  was  in  actual  operation  both  in  Ten 
nessee  and  the  adjoining  States  some  time  before  there  were  any 
negro  legislatures  or  any  negro  voters. 

The  report  admits  the  sorry  character  of  the  governments  im 
posed  upon  the  reconstructed  States.  "The  refusal  of  their  former 
masters  to  participate  in  political  reconstruction  necessarily  left 
the  negroes  to  be  influenced  by  others.  Many  of  them  were  elected 
to  office,  and  entered  it  with  honest  intentions  to  do  their  duty, 
but  were  unfitted  for  its  discharge.  Through  their  instrumental 
ity,  many  unworthy  white  men,  having  obtained  their  confidence, 
also  procured  public  positions." 

In  South  Carolina,  especially,  corruption  was  flagrant.  The 
testimony  taken  by  the  committee  discloses  the  demoralization 
which  prevailed  among  Radicals  and  Democrats,  —  black  and 
white  alike. 

Dr.  R.  M.  Smith,  a  Democratic  member  of  the  Legislature, 
when  asked  if  he  would  impose  a  penalty  upon  a  man  who  bribes 
a  public  official,  replied:  "No,  sir;  because  when  it  is  understood 
that  a  man  is  for  sale  like  a  sheep,  or  anything  else,  any  man  has 
a  right  to  buy  him." 

General  M.  C.  Butler,  later  a  United  States  Senator,  a  Confed 
erate  who  wore  the  United  States  uniform  as  a  volunteer  major- 
general  in  the  war  with  Spain,  had  this  to  say  concerning  land 
commission  frauds,  by  which  native  South  Carolinians  sold  their 


BITTER    PROBLEMS  363 

to  blame  —  conditions  which  would  never  have  pre 
vailed  had  the  South  been  left  a  little  longer  under 
military  control  before  being  plunged  into  the  ex 
perimental  bath  of  Reconstruction.  The  steps  he  took 
to  bring  about  a  semblance  of  order  were  drastic  and 
to  some  obnoxious;  but  at  the  moment  they  seemed 
obvious  and  necessary  —  and  there  was  no  lack  of 
definiteness  in  his  method  of  approach. 

Virginia,  Texas,  and  Mississippi  having  ratified 
the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Amendments,  their 
Senators  and  Representatives  were  admitted  to  Con 
gress  under  a  resolution  containing  conditions  cal 
culated  to  prevent  these  States  from  slipping  from 
Republican  control.  Hiram  R.  Revels,  a  quadroon, 
had  the  distinction  of  being  the  first  colored  man  to 
hold  a  seat  in  the  United  States  Senate,  succeed 
ing  to  the  place  last  occupied  by  Jefferson  Davis. 
All  the  Confederate  States  had  now  gone  through 
the  process  of  Reconstruction;  but  Georgia,  which 
had  been  represented  in  the  House  of  Representa 
tives  since  1868  under  Johnson's  Reconstruction,  was 
forced  to  go  through  the  process  again.  After  she 

land  at  five  dollars  an  acre  to  the  State  and  allowed  the  commis 
sion  to  insert  ten  dollars  an  acre  as  the  consideration  in  the  deed: 
"  It  was  human  nature  almost.  I  do  not  think  a  strictly  honest  man 
would  do  it.  If  I  had  ten  thousand  acres  of  land  to  sell  and  a 
Senator  would  come  to  me  and  say,  'I  will  buy  that  if  you  will 
give  me  five  hundred  dollars,'  I  would  buy  him  up  as  I  would  buy 
a  mule." 


364  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

had  once  been  admitted  to  the  Union  the  conserva 
tives  in  the  Legislature  had  committed  the  offense 
of  expelling  all  the  negro  members  and  seating  in 
their  place  white  men  ineligible  under  the  Fourteenth 
Amendment.  Her  Senators-elect  had  never  been  per 
mitted  to  take  their  seats  and  her  Representatives 
were  now  barred  from  the  House  on  the  organiza 
tion  of  the  Forty-first  Congress  in  March,  1869. 

There  were  comparatively  few  carpet-baggers  in 
Georgia,  but  Bullock,  the  radical  Governor,  a  man  of 
force  and  not  oppressed  by  scruples,  had  proved  him 
self  obnoxious.  The  finances  of  the  State  were  in 
volved  in  obscurity  and  confusion.  The  Western  and 
Atlantic  Railroad,  which  for  years  had  been  the  pride 
of  the  State,  was  sacrificed  to  politics  and  loot.  The 
superintendent  of  the  road  testified  that  he  took 
charge  "to  manage  its  public  and  political  policy." 
The  auditor  saved  thirty  thousand  dollars  a  year  on 
a  three  thousand  dollar  salary,  as  he  said,  "by  prac 
ticing  strict  economy."  Grant  in  his  annual  message, 
December  6,  1869,  recommended  the  reorganization 
of  the  Legislature.  A  law  was  promptly  enacted  con 
taining  strict  stipulations  regarding  membership  in 
the  Legislature,  providing  that  before  her  Senators 
and  Representatives  should  be  admitted  to  Congress, 
Georgia  must  ratify  the  Fifteenth  Amendment,  and 
that  upon  the  application  of  the  Governor  the  Presi- 


BITTER   PROBLEMS  365 

dent  should  employ  what  military  force  was  necessary 
to  enforce  the  act.  Terry  was  assigned  to  command, 
the  Legislature  was  summoned,  and  under  his  orders 
twenty-four  Democrats  were  ousted.  Their  places 
were  filled  by  Republicans,  and  the  negroes  who  had 
been  expelled  were  readmitted.  Thus  reconstructed, 
the  Legislature  ratified  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth 
Amendments  and  elected  two  Senators. 

In  Congress  there  was  a  desperate  attempt  not  only 
to  prescribe  for  Georgia  the  "fundamental  condi 
tions"  imposed  on  Virginia,  Texas,  and  Mississippi, 
but  to  prolong  for  two  years  the  life  of  the  reorgan 
ized  radical  Bullock  Legislature.  Morton,  Sumner, 
Wilson,  and  other  radical  leaders  in  the  Senate  carried 
on  there  a  long  and  bitter  but  unsuccessful  fight. 
The  Bullock  scheme  for  prolongation  was  beaten  and 
the  right  of  Georgia  to  have  an  election  in  1870  as 
stipulated  in  its  constitution  was  confirmed.  Thus 
for  the  first  time  since  the  early  days  of  Reconstruc 
tion  the  conservative  element  in  the  Republican 
Party  showed  itself  in  the  ascendancy. 

Beaten  at  Washington,  Bullock  got  his  hand-picked 
Georgia  Senate  to  pass  a  resolution  that  the  Legisla 
ture  should  not  meet  until  January,  1872,  that  no 
election  for  members  should  be  held  until  Novem 
ber,  1872,  and  that,until  the  election,  all  state  officers 
should  hold  their  place.  There  was  a  fierce  fight  in 


366  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

the  House  over  the  resolution  which  was  finally 
defeated  through  the  influence  of  Grant.  Bullock 
then  induced  the  Legislature  to  pass  a  law,  setting 
December  22  as  the  beginning  of  an  election  which 
was  to  continue  three  days,  the  plan  apparently  be 
ing  to  give  the  negroes  an  opportunity  to  "repeat" 
from  precinct  to  precinct.  No  votes  were  to  be 
challenged;  none  refused.  The  poll  tax  levied  for 
the  past  three  years  was  declared  illegal,  so  that  no 
one  need  be  disfranchised  for  non-payment  of  taxes. 

The  white  Democrats,  intent  on  clearing  the 
negroes  and  carpet-baggers  out  of  the  State  Capitol, 
took  things  into  their  own  hands.  There  were  no 
"outrages,"  no  intimidation,  no  turbulence,  but  there 
was  plenty  of  "persuasion."  The  negroes  were  un 
usually  flush  with  spending-money  for  a  few  days 
after  the  election.  Many  of  them  voted  the  Demo 
cratic  ticket.  More  of  them  stayed  away  from  the 
polls.  It  was  a  test  of  the  supremacy  of  intellect  and 
cash  over  the  passion  of  freemen  for  the  ballot. 

The  Democrats  elected  two  thirds  of  the  Legisla 
ture  and  five  out  of  seven  Congressmen  —  a  good 
beginning  for  a  numerical  minority.  Thereafter 
Georgia  had  "home  rule."  A  Democratic  Governor 
was  inaugurated  two  years  later  in  1872.  The  regen 
erated  State  has  ever  since  cast  its  electoral  vote  for 
the  Democratic  candidate  for  President.  A  Southern 


BITTER   PROBLEMS  367 

woman,  who  late  in  the  winter  of  1869  wrote  that 
"the  negroes  were  almost  in  a  state  of  anarchy," 
wrote  two  years  later,  "The  negroes  are  behaving 
like  angels."  Such  was  the  beneficent  result  of  the 
new  doctrine  of  "persuasion." 

North  Carolina  was  an  old,  substantial  Whig 
State,  uncursed  by  negro  supremacy;  and  yet  cor 
ruption  ruled.  Bribery  in  the  Legislature  was  open 
and  usual.  All  sorts  of  questionable  enterprises  were 
"put  across."  The  debt  of  the  State  increased  from 
$16,000,000  to  $32,000,000.  There  were  Ku-Klux 
outrages,  though  not  so  many  as  in  other  States. 
Holden,  the  Governor,  declared  two  counties  in  a 
state  of  insurrection,  and  sent  Colonel  Kirk  with  a 
body  of  mountaineer  militia  to  keep  the  peace.  Kirk 
arrested  a  hundred  citizens,  many  of  good  repute, 
and  kept  them  in  custody  in  daily  dread  of  death 
under  martial  law. 

"  Kirk's  Raid,"  as  it  was  known,  stirred  Washing 
ton  to  wrath,  and  there  was  hot  debate.  The  judge 
of  the  United  States  District  Court  issued  a  writ 
of  habeas  corpus  commanding  Kirk  to  bring  his 
prisoners  before  him.  Grant  sent  a  regiment  to  the 
scene  and  the  United  States  Marshal  called  upon 
the  troops  to  execute  the  order  of  the  court.  Finally 
Grant  turned  the  whole  business  over  to  Attorney- 
General  Akerman,  who  sustained  the  federal  judge; 


368  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

whereupon  the  court  discharged  the  prisoners  from 
Kirk's  "unlawful  custody."  While  all  this  was  going 
on,  an  election  was  held  on  August  4,  which  resulted 
in  general  Republican  defeat.  The  Democrats  carried 
the  Legislature  and  elected  five  out  of  the  seven 
Congressmen. 

Holden,  the  Governor,  made  himself  especially 
obnoxious  by  garrisoning  Raleigh,  the  State  Capital, 
with  negro  troops.  He  was  impeached,  found  guilty, 
and  removed  from  office. 

In  the  midst  of  disturbances  arising  from  the 
emancipation  of  the  negro  and  his  imposition  upon 
the  electorate  of  the  South,  the  Fifteenth  Amend 
ment  to  the  Constitution  became  valid  through  rati 
fication  by  the  Legislatures  of  three  fourths  of  the 
States,  among  them  North  and  South  Carolina, 
Louisiana,  Arkansas,  Florida,  Virginia,  Alabama, 
Mississippi,  Texas,  and  Georgia,  reconstructed  States 
of  the  Confederacy.  The  Secretary  of  State  certified 
to  this  on  March  30,  1870. 

So  impressed  was  Grant  with  the  significance  of 
the  completion  of  the  trilogy  of  changes  in  the  or 
ganic  law  growing  out  of  the  Civil  War  that  he  made 
it  the  occasion  of  a  special  message  to  Congress,  flam 
ing  with  fervid  rhetoric  to  a  degree  unusual  for 
Grant.  Although  an  editorial  blue  pencil  would  have 


ENFORCEMENT  ACTS  369 

helped  the  message,  the  recommendations  it  con 
tained  were  sound:  "Institutions  like  ours,  in  which 
all  power  is  derived  from  the  people,  must  depend 
mainly  upon  their  intelligence,  patriotism,  and  in 
dustry.  I  call  the  attention,  therefore,  of  the  newly 
enfranchised  race  to  the  importance  of  their  striving 
in  every  honorable  manner  to  make  themselves 
worthy  of  their  new  privilege.  To  the  race  most 
favored  heretofore  by  our  laws  I  would  say,  with 
hold  no  legal  privilege  of  advancement  to  the  new 
citizen.  The  framers  of  our  Constitution  firmly  be 
lieved  that  a  republican  government  could  not  en 
dure  without  intelligence  and  education  generally 
diffused  among  the  people.  ...  I  would  therefore 
call  upon  Congress  to  take  all  the  means  within 
their  constitutional  powers  to  promote  and  en 
courage  popular  education  throughout  the  country 
and  upon  the  people  everywhere  to  see  to  it  that  all 
who  possess  and  exercise  political  rights  shall  have 
the  opportunity  to  acquire  the  knowledge  which  will 
make  their  share  in  the  Government  a  blessing  and 
not  a  danger." 

But  the  first  acts  of  Congress  under  the  second 
section  of  the  Amendment,  giving  that  body  power 
"  to  enforce  this  article  by  appropriate  legislation," 
did  not  lie  in  the  direction  of  popular  education. 
On  the  contrary,  they  were  intended  to  meet  the 


370  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

turbulent  conditions  in  Southern  States  which  had 
resulted  in  so  many  instances  in  the  intimidation  of 
the  negro  and  the  suppression  of  his  vote  by  an  in 
telligent  and  ruthless  minority  bent  upon  restoring 
the  political  control  of  their  state  governments  to 
those  best  qualified  to  administer  them. 

In  quick  succession  Congress  passed  three  "en 
forcement  acts,"  the  first  of  which  was  signed  by 
Grant  on  May  31,  1870.  "  The  scope  and  purpose 
of  the  bill,"  said  Carl  Schurz  in  its  support, "is  that 
no  State  shall  enforce  a  law  with  regard  to  elections, 
or  the  processes  preliminary  to  elections,  in  which  in 
any  way,  either  directly  or  indirectly,  discrimination 
is  made  against  any  citizen  on  account  of  race,  color, 
or  previous  condition;  .  .  .  neither  a  State  nor  an 
individual  shall  deprive  any  citizen  of  the  United 
States  on  account  of  race  and  color,  of  the  free  exer 
cise  of  his  right  to  participate  in  the  functions  of  self- 
government;  and  the  National  Government  assumes 
the  duty  to  prevent  the  commission  of  the  crime  and 
to  correct  the  consequences  when  committed." 

Thurman  and  other  Democratic  Senators  de 
nounced  the  act  as  "outrage  and  oppression"  and 
Edmunds  bitingly  called  attention  to  the  irony  of  the 
circumstance  that  the  machinery  for  the  enforcement 
of  the  act  should  have  been  borrowed  from  the  Fugi 
tive  Slave  Law  of  1850. 


ENFORCEMENT   ACTS  371 

One  section  of  the  act  was  directed  toward  the 
suppression  of  the  Ku-Klux  Klan;  another  author 
ized  the  President  to  employ  when  necessary  the 
military  force  of  the  United  States  "  to  aid  in  the  exe 
cution  of  judicial  process "  under  the  act,  and  there 
were  special  provisions  for  the  enforcement  of  the 
Fourteenth  Amendment. 

Having  had  its  taste  of  blood  Congress  went  to 
greater  lengths.  On  February  28,  1871,  a  second 
Enforcement  Act  was  approved  by  Grant,  entitled 
"An  Act  to  enforce  the  rights  of  citizens  of  the 
United  States  to  vote  in  the  several  States  of  this 
Union."  It  placed  the  elections  for  members  of  Con 
gress  under  federal  control;  provided  for  the  appoint 
ment  of  supervisors  by  judges  of  the  United  States 
Courts  to  insure  a  fair  vote  and  honest  count;  em 
powered  United  States  Marshals  to  appoint  deputies 
to  prevent  interference  with  the  right  of  voting,  any 
one  of  whom  might  summon  the  posse  comitatus  of 
his  district  to  aid  in  the  enforcement  of  the  law. 

The  act,  of  course,  applied  to  all  the  States;  in 
fact,  it  was  subsequently  brought  to  bear  upon  the 
election  frauds  of  Tammany  in  New  York;  but  its 
immediate  object  was  to  protect  the  negroes  in  the 
exercise  of  suffrage  in  the  South,  where,  by  a  strange 
perversion  of  the  intention  of  the  Emancipation 
Proclamation  and  the  constitutional  amendments, 


372  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

the  white  population  already  were  beginning  to 
realize  that  by  counting  the  negro  in  the  census  and 
failing  to  count  his  vote  they  could  enjoy  a  greater 
proportional  representation  in  the  House  of  Repre 
sentatives  even  than  before  the  war. 

The  third  Enforcement  Act  had  the  like  general 
purpose  in  view  of  establishing  order  in  the  South. 
The  new  Congress  —  the  Forty-second  —  which  be 
gan  its  sessions  on  March  4,  according  to  the  law 
enacted  to  curb  Johnson's  activities,  had  before  it 
the  report  of  a  special  committee  appointed  during 
the  preceding  session  to  investigate  affairs  in  the 
South.  On  March  23,  Grant  called  attention  to  the 
report  in  a  special  message  in  which  he  said:  "A 
condition  of  affairs  now  exists  in  some  of  the  States 
of  the  Union  rendering  life  and  property  insecure 
and  the  carrying  of  the  mails  and  the  collection  of 
the  revenue  dangerous.  The  proof  that  such  a  con 
dition  of  affairs  exists  in  some  localities  is  now  be 
fore  the  Senate.  That  the  power  to  correct  these 
evils  is  beyond  the  control  of  the  state  authorities  I 
do  not  doubt;  that  the  power  of  the  Executive  of 
the  United  States,  acting  within  the  limits  of  exist 
ing  laws,  is  sufficient  for  present  emergencies  is  not 
clear.  Therefore  I  urgently  recommend  such  legisla 
tion  as  in  the  judgment  of  Congress  shall  effectu 
ally  secure  life,  liberty,  and  property  and  the  en- 


ENFORCEMENT  ACTS  373 

forcement  of  the  law  in  all  parts  of  the  United 
States." 

Feeling  was  intense  at  the  moment,  and  Congress 
quickly  complied  with  the  request  of  the  President, 
by  passing  the  law  of  April  20,  1871,  "to  enforce  the 
provisions  of  the  Fourteenth  Amendment."  This 
law  conferred  upon  the  President  extraordinary 
powers.  One  section  authorized  him  to  suspend  the 
privileges  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  the  author 
ity  to  expire  at  the  end  of  the  succeeding  session  of 
Congress. 

The  election  of  1872  was  approaching  and  there 
were  signs  of  division  among  Republican  leaders,  but 
with  a  few  exceptions  the  party  stood  well  together 
in  support  of  the  Ku-Klux  Bill  as  it  was  called. 

The  Democrats  of  the  Senate  were  vehement  in 
opposition,  even  while  admitting  the  existence  of 
the  outrages.  Thurman  declared  the  bill  unconstitu 
tional.  But  Morton,  who  led  the  Republican  major 
ity  declared:  "Shall  Reconstruction  be  maintained; 
shall  the  constitutional  amendments  be  upheld;  shall 
the  colored  people  be  protected  in  their  enjoyment 
of  equal  rights;  shall  the  Republicans  of  the  South 
ern  States  be  protected  in  life,  liberty,  and  property? 
—  are  the  great  issues  to  be  settled  in  1872." 

Eleven  years  later  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  declared  the  act  unconstitutional.  The  court 


374  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

already  in  1875  had  declared  unconstitutional  the 
principal  sections  of  the  first  Enforcement  Act  of 
May  31,  1870,  "as  involving  the  exercise  by  the 
United  States  of  powers  in  excess  of  those  granted 
by  the  Fifteenth  Amendment." 

In  only  one  instance  did  Grant  make  use  of  the 
extraordinary  powers  given  him  by  the  Ku-Klux  Act; 
and  that  was  in  the  case  of  South  Carolina,  which  he 
had  particularly  in  mind  when  he  wrote  his  message. 
Scott,  the  carpet-bag  Governor,  had  applied  for 
troops,  declaring  that  combinations  of  armed  men, 
unauthorized  by  law,  were  committing  acts  of  vio 
lence  in  the  State.  On  the  3d  day  of  May  Grant 
issued  a  proclamation  declaring :  "  I  will  not  hesitate 
to  exhaust  the  powers  thus  vested' in  the  Executive 
whenever  and  wherever  it  shall  become  necessary  to 
do  so  for  the  purpose  of  securing  to  all  citizens  of 
the  United  States  the  peaceful  enjoyment  of  the 
rights  guaranteed  to  them  by  the  Constitution  and 
laws." 

On  October  17, 1871,  he  issued  a  proclamation  sus 
pending  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  in  nine  counties 
named.  Under  these  proclamations  many  persons 
were  arrested  and  some  were  prosecuted  and  pun 
ished. 

The  measures  taken  had  a  speedy  effect.  Accord 
ing  to  the  report  of  the  Ku-Klux  Investigating  Com- 


ENFORCEMENT   ACTS  375 

mittee  there  was  an  "apparent  cessation"  of  Ku- 
Klux  operations  by  February  19,  1872.  Grant  in  his 
annual  message  of  December  2,  1872,  declared  that 
he  could  not  question  "  the  necessity  and  salutary 
effect"  of  the  enforcement  acts,  and  in  his  second 
inaugural,  March  4,  1873,  he  felt  justified  in  saying: 
"  The  States  lately  at  war  with  the  general  Govern 
ment  are  now  happily  rehabilitated  and  no  execu 
tive  control  is  exercised  in  any  one  of  them  that 
would  not  be  exercised  in  any  other  State  under  like 
circumstances." 

To  Grant's  firmness  in  using  the  instruments  of 
enforcement  placed  in  his  hands  by  Congress  must 
be  attributed  in  great  measure  this  result.  A  weaker 
Executive  would  have  dallied  with  the  disturbances 
until  they  passed  beyond  control.  He  regretted  the 
necessity,  but  it  was  his  nature  to  enforce  obedience 
to  the  law  —  a  part  of  his  day's  work.  In  Grant's 
second  Administration  there  were  racial  and  politi 
cal  conflicts  in  Louisiana,  Mississippi,  and  South 
Carolina  which  necessitated  the  interposition  of  fed 
eral  troops.  That  is  an  unhappy  episode  in  American 
history,  which  in  its  proper  place  shall  have  a  chap 
ter  to  itself. 

In  bright  contrast  is  the  gradual  extension  of  am 
nesty  to  former  participants  in  rebellion.  By  special 
acts  amnesty  was  extended  to  3185  former  Confed- 


376  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

crates  during  the  Forty-first  Congress,  which  came  to 
an  end  March  4,  1871,  but  many  Southerners  were 
too  proudly  sensitive  to  petition  for  a  removal  of 
their  disabilities.  General  legislation  was  needed  to 
obviate  these  special  acts. 

A  magnanimous  and  lucid  paragraph  illuminates 
Grant's  annual  message  of  December  4, 1871 :  "  More 
than  six  years  having  elapsed  since  the  last  hostile 
gun  was  fired  between  the  armies  then  arrayed 
against  each  other  —  one  for  the  perpetuation,  the 
other  for  the  destruction,  of  the  Union  —  it  may  well 
be  considered  whether  it  is  not  now  time  that  the 
disabilities  imposed  by  the  Fourteenth  Amendment 
should  be  removed.  That  amendment  does  not  ex 
clude  the  ballot,  but  only  imposes  the  disability  to 
hold  offices  upon  certain  classes.  When  the  purity  of 
the  ballot  is  secure,  majorities  are  sure  to  elect  offi 
cers  reflecting  the  views  of  the  majority.  I  do  not  see 
the  advantage  or  propriety  of  excluding  men  from 
office  merely  because  they  were  before  the  rebellion 
of  standing  and  character  sufficient  to  be  elected  to 
positions  requiring  them  to  take  oaths  to  support  the 
Constitution,  and  admitting  to  eligibility  those  enter 
taining  precisely  the  same  views  but  of  less  standing 
in  their  communities.  It  may  be  said  that  the  former 
violated  an  oath,  while  the  latter  did  not;  the  latter 
did  not  have  it  in  their  power  to  do  so.  If  they  had 


AMNESTY  377 

taken  this  oath,  it  cannot  be  doubted  they  would 
have  broken  it  as  did  the  former  class."  But  he 
added,  with  Jefferson  Davis,  Jacob  Thompson,  and 
perhaps  others  in  mind:  "If  there  are  any  great  crim 
inals,  distinguished  above  all  others  for  the  part  they 
took  in  opposition  to  the  Government,  they  might, 
in  the  judgment  of  Congress,  be  excluded  from  such 
an  amnesty." 

A  bill  providing  for  general  amnesty  had  passed  the 
House.  It  would  have  passed  the  Senate  had  not 
Sumner  insisted  on  his  supplementary  Civil  Rights 
Bill  as  an  amendment. 

This  Civil  Rights  Bill,  which  Sumner's  biographer 
summarizes  as  prohibiting  discriminations  against 
colored  people  "by  common  carriers,  by  proprietors 
of  theaters  and  inns,  managers  of  schools,  of  cemeter 
ies  and  of  churches,  or  as  to  service  as  jurors  in  any 
courts,  state  or  national,"  was  peculiarly  obnoxious 
to  the  Southern  whites  as  an  attempt  to  force  upon 
them  social  equality  with  the  negro,  and  it  was 
equally  offensive  to  Northern  men  who  resented 
such  an  attempt  by  the  National  Government  to  in 
terfere  with  perfectly  natural  social  conditions  within 
the  States. 

Its  enactment  would  have  done  the  negro  a  poor 
service;  but  this  the  devoted  Sumner  could  not  com 
prehend,  and  owing  to  his  obduracy,  in  face  of  the 


378  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

appeals  of  some  of  the  negroes'  best  friends  in  Con 
gress,  the  Amnesty  Bill  failed  of  passage.  Finally  in 
May,  1872,  a  bill  for  general  amnesty  passed  the 
House  unanimously,  and  after  Sumner's  civil  rights 
amendment  had  been  voted  down,  passed  the  Senate 
with  equal  celerity.  This  bill  did  not  go  so  far  as  the 
bill  which  Sumner  killed  in  the  Senate.  It  left  be 
tween  three  hundred  and  five  hundred  former  Con 
federates  still  subject  to  political  disabilities. 

Sumner,  who  cast  one  of  two  negatives,  said  he 
could  not  vote  for  it  "  while  the  colored  race  are 
shut  out  from  their  rights  and  the  ban  of  color  is 
recognized  in  this  chamber.  Sir,  the  time  has  not 
come  for  amnesty.  You  must  be  just  to  the  colored 
race  before  you  are  generous  to  former  rebels." 

Grant  signed  the  bill  on  May  22,  1872.  It  removed 
the  disabilities  of  all  except  Senators  and  Representa 
tives  of  the  Thirty-sixth  and  Thirty-seventh  Con 
gresses,  officers  in  the  judicial,  military,  and  naval 
service  of  the  United  States,  heads  of  departments 
and  foreign  ministers  of  the  United  States.  But  the 
disabilities  of  men  of  this  excepted  class  were  re 
moved  later  as  occasion  required,  and  many  of  them 
rendered  their  reunited  country  unselfish  and  patri 
otic  service. 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 
CAUSES  FOR  PARTY  DISAFFECTION 

"  HE  has  sat  by  and  seen  the  country  tolerably  well 
governed,"  said  Samuel  Bowles  in  the  "  Springfield 
Republican"  in  November,  1871.  Bowles  was  good 
at  epigram.  He  was  a  journalist  of  rare  attainments, 
of  fine  ideals  in  politics,  of  vivid  personality,  with  a 
suggestion  of  the  iconoclast.  He  never  hesitated  to 
differ  with  contemporaries,  even  his  closest  friends. 
With  most  of  them  he  took  issue  at  the  very  beginning 
of  Grant's  Administration,  when,  two  days  after  the 
precedent-smashing  appointments  to  the  Cabinet 
were  made  public,  he  wrote  to  Henry  L.  Dawes:  "I 
like  the  Cabinet  —  you  ought  to  like  it  because  it  is 
a  revolution,  because  it  breaks  up  rings,  and  makes 
reform  more  easy  and  possible";  and  he  may  have 
been  less  surprised  than  others  because  a  month 
earlier  he  had  written:  "My  opinion  is  that  Grant's 
Cabinet  and  the  way  it  is  made  up  will  prove  a  bomb 
shell,  in  especial  congressional  and  political  circles." 
Plainly  a  change  had  come  upon  the  vision  of  the 
Springfield  seer.  The  change  was  typical  of  many  of 
his  kind,  and  it  foreshadowed  happenings  which, 
while  they  had  but  little  influence  on  Grant's  career, 


380  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

have  had  a  share  in  fixing  the  repute  of  his  Adminis 
tration  quite  out  of  keeping  with  their  bearing  on  the 
times.  Though  Bowles  was  not  a  bookish  man,  and 
gained  his  learning  almost  wholly  from  his  daily  con 
tact  with  the  world,  absorbing  information  here  and 
there  as  bees  suck  honey,  he  had  the  delicate  sense  of 
values  with  which  all  writers  for  the  press  should  be 
endowed,  combined  with  the  fine  fervor  befitting  one 
who  had  passed  through  the  fires  of  a  great  moral 
conflict  and  a  civil  war,  and  thus  had  much  in  com 
mon  with  men  like  Adams,  Godkin,  Curtis,  Schurz, 
and  Sumner,  who  ranked  him  easily  in  scholarship, 
though  not  in  high  ideals.  His  taste  was  for  the 
"literary  fellers,"  whom  Zachariah  Chandler  bap 
tized  with  expletives  when  Lowell  intruded  on  the 
patronage  preserves  by  taking  office  as  Minister  to 
Spain.  Men  of  his  type  idealized  the  finer  qualities  in 
Grant  which  marked  heroic  moments  in  his  military 
career.  Grant's  quiet  simplicity  and  reserve  appealed 
to  them,  —  his  complete  indifference  to  the  fame 
which  soldiers  are  supposed  to  crave. 

"  I  am  no  great  admirer  of  military  heroes,"  wrote 
Motley  to  the  Duchess  of  Argyle  a  few  weeks  after 
Appomattox,  "  but  we  needed  one  at  this  period,  and 
we  can  never  be  too  thankful  that  such  a  one  was 
vouchsafed  to  us  —  one  so  vast  and  fertile  in  concep 
tion,  so  patient  in  waiting,  so  rapid  in  striking,  had 


CAUSES   FOR   PARTY   DISAFFECTION     381 

come,  and  withal  so  destitute  of  personal  ambition,  so 
modest,  so  averse  to  public  notoriety.  The  man  on 
whom  the  gaze  of  both  hemispheres  has  been  steadily 
concentrated  for  two  years  seems  ever  shrinking  from 
observation.  All  his  admiration  warmly  expressed  is 
for  Sherman  and  Sheridan.  So  long  as  we  can  pro 
duce  such  a  man  as  Grant  our  Republic  is  safe.  .  .  . 
There  is  something  very  sublime  to  my  imagination 
in  the  fact  that  Grant  has  never  yet  set  his  foot  in 
Richmond,  and  perhaps  never  will."  A  rare  tribute 
and  merited;  but  how  strangely  in  contrast  with  the 
vituperative  lashings  by  Motley's  friend  Sumner,  six 
years  later. 

And  this  from  Holmes  to  Motley  is  characteristic  of 
exchanges  between  friends  in  the  Boston  group:  "  He 
is  one  of  the  simplest,  stillest  men  I  ever  saw.  .  .  . 
Of  all  the  considerable  personages  I  have  seen,  he 
appears  to  me  to  be  the  least  capable  of  an  emotion  of 
vanity.  .  .  .  Did  he  enjoy  the  being  followed  as  he 
was  by  the  multitude?  *  It  was  very  painful.'  This 
answer  is  singularly  characteristic  of  the  man.  ...  I 
cannot  get  over  the  impression  he  made  on  me.  I 
have  got  something  like  it  from  women  sometimes, 
hardly  ever  from  men  —  that  of  entire  loss  of  self 
hood  in  a  great  aim,  which  made  all  the  common  in 
fluences  which  stir  up  other  people  as  nothing  to  him." 

Such  was  the  figure  Grant  cut  in  scholarly  imag- 


382  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

inations  while  the  halo  of  successful  generalship  was 
new  upon  him  and  before  his  garments  had  been 
soiled  by  contact  with  the  slime  of  politics.  Had  he 
been  endowed  with  a  taste  for  things  which  men  of 
culture  fancy,  or  been  much  inclined  to  their  com 
panionship,  he  might  well  have  retained  their  liking 
and  support  even  though  he  had  shattered  their 
ideals  and  their  fine  faith  in  his  political  impeccabil 
ity.  They  would  have  been  more  willing  to  charge  to 
the  requirements  of  the  time  unhappy  incidents 
which  offended  them,  and  history  would  have  been 
spared  the  sorry  spectacle  of  personal  quarrels  and 
unjust  attacks  upon  his  motives  and  sincerity.  The 
times  were  doubtless  ripe  for  punishment,  but  not 
for  such  as  that  which  men  like  Sumner,  Godkin, 
Bowles,  and  Schurz  meted  out  to  Grant,  chiefly  be 
cause  he  lacked  the  social  atmosphere  to  comprehend 
their  point  of  view. 

Even  before  he  had  been  sworn  in  as  President  he 
displeased  many  who  would  have  been  ready  with 
advice  by  quite  neglecting  to  seek  counsel  or  ask  for 
help  in  writing  his  inaugural  and  picking  out  a  cabi 
net.  He  was  ingenuous  as  a  child  in  politics,  and  be 
fore  he  was  thrown  against  the  nation's  conscious 
ness  by  the  rush  of  war  had  hardly  shown  even  the 
ordinary  interest  in  public  questions  which  is  sup 
posed  to  be  the  birthright  of  every  true  American. 


CAUSES   FOR   PARTY   DISAFFECTION    383 

His  disagreeable  encounter  with  the  most  unpleas 
ant  side  of  things  in  Johnson's  Administration  had 
emphasized  his  natural  disinclination  to  fraternize 
with  men  trained  in  affairs.  Before  Appomattox  he 
had  known  nothing  of  the  ways  of  Washington  ex 
cept  as  he  was  made  unpleasantly  aware  at  times  of 
bureaucratic  interference  with  his  military  plans.  He 
had  never  seen  a  legislative  body  in  session,  or  vis 
ited  a  state  capital,  save  to  capture  it,  except  when 
he  was  waiting  at  Springfield  for  a  regiment. 

His  familiarity  with  literature  hardly  extended 
beyond  his  textbooks  at  West  Point.  He  read  novels 
sometimes  for  the  story,  never  for  the  style.  His  li 
brary  was  limited  to  the  books  on  the  center  table  in 
the  parlor  and  the  what-not  in  the  corner.  He  cared 
little  about  history,  except  as  he  helped  to  make  it 
or  learned  it  by  attrition  in  the  process. 

He  was  indifferent  to  the  literature  even  of  his 
own  trade.  When  he  came  home  from  the  war  Phila 
delphia  and  Washington  presented  him  with  houses; 
Boston  thought  to  show  its  gratitude  by  giving  him 
a  library.  Samuel  Hooper  undertook  to  find  out 
quietly  what  military  books  he  had  so  that  duplicates 
might  be  avoided,  and  discovered  to  his  astonish 
ment  that  Grant  had  no  military  books  whatever. 
His  proficiency  in  war  came  to  him  through  intuition, 
and  his  genius  for  adapting  military  principles  to  un- 


384  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

foreseen  emergencies  and  such  capacity  as  he  showed 
in  public  affairs  came  in  the  same  way.  "  His  states 
manship,"  says  Boutwell,  "  had  no  other  art  or  magic 
in  it  than  what  may  be  found  in  the  relations  of  an 
honest  country  people." 

The  companions  he  liked  and  cultivated  were 
not  men  who  appealed  to  exquisite  tastes.  He  had 
many  more  points  of  contact  with  the  "generously 
good"  George  William  Childs  than  with  the  schol 
arly  George  William  Curtis,  political  essayist  and 
reformer.  He  took  advice  from  Zachariah  Chandler, 
John  A.  Logan,  and  Roscoe  Conkling  more  readily 
than  from  Charles  Sumner,  Carl  Schurz,  and  Lyman 
Trumbull.  He  grouped  Adam  Badeau  and  John 
Lothrop  Motley  as  historians  of  similar  merit,  and 
personally  preferred  Badeau,  who  says  Grant  once 
offered  him  Motley's  place  in  London,  a  decoration 
which  Badeau  with  commendable  self-abnegation 
brushed  aside. 

Even  with  Fish,  the  ornament  and  pillar  of  his 
Administration,  in  whom  he  placed  implicit  confi 
dence,  and  whom  he  favored  as  his  own  successor, 
there  was  so  little  intimacy  that  when  years  later  the 
two  were  living  near  each  other  in  New  York,  they 
hardly  ever  met. 

Grant  had  not  been  in  the  White  House  a  year  be 
fore  signs  of  party  disaffection  were  discernible. 


CAUSES   FOR   PARTY   DISAFFECTION     385 

Sumner 's  break  with  the  Administration  over  San 
Domingo  was  the  first  noticeable  evidence  of  revolt 
against  it,  rendered  all  the  more  conspicuous  be 
cause  Grant  took  his  defeat  so  much  to  heart,  after 
displaying  a  pertinacity  of  method  better  fitted  to 
the  conduct  of  a  desperate  military  campaign  than  to 
the  delicate  negotiation  of  a  parliamentary  contro 
versy  requiring  strategy  and  compromise.  Grant's 
personal  visits  to  the  Capitol,  his  pressure  upon  re 
luctant  Senators,  his  persistent  lobbying,  his  seem 
ing  lack  of  comprehension  of  the  dignity  of  his  high 
place,  lowered  him  perceptibly  in  the  estimation  of 
men  whose  good  opinion  he  should  have  been  zealous 
to  retain.  The  deposition  of  Sumner  from  his  place 
at  the  head  of  the  Senate  Committee  on  Foreign  Re 
lations  offended  men  of  culture  and  literary  attain 
ments  everywhere;  for  while  they  might  not  sym 
pathize  with  Sumner  in  his  various  perversities,  he 
had  come  to  be  regarded  as  an  institution,  one  of  the 
few  public  men  in  Washington  at  that  day  who  could 
be  safely  matched  against  the  statesmen  of  England, 
France,  and  Germany,  trained  in  the  universities. 

It  was  bad  enough  to  have  Sumner  humiliated,  but 
to  have  his  mantle  fall  upon  Simon  Cameron,  seemed 
to  those  who  were  not  familiar  with  the  Senate  tra 
dition  determining  committee  rank  by  seniority  a 
brutal  and  wanton  affront.  The  recall  of  Motley 


386  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

quickly  followed,  and  that,  too,  was  regarded  by 
those  who  were  not  familiar  with  all  the  circum 
stances  as  a  deliberate  injustice  to  a  diplomatist  of 
learning  and  distinction.  It  was  no  salve  to  lacerated 
sensibilities  when  General  Robert  C.  Schenck  was 
named  as  his  successor,  an  Ohio  Congressman  of 
moderate  attainments,  destined  to  earn  some  fame  in 
London  as  promoter  of  the  Emma  Mine  and  author 
of  a  textbook  on  draw  poker. 

Grant's  summary  demand  on  June  15,  1870,  for 
Judge  Hoar's  resignation  as  Attorney-General,  and 
his  appointment  of  the  unknown  Akerman  to  fill  the 
vacancy,  helped  to  intensify  the  feeling  of  distrust. 
It  was  not  then  generally  known  that  Hoar  was  sacri 
ficed  because  the  Southern  Senators  whose  votes 

/ 

Grant  needed  for  his  San  Domingo  Treaty  insisted  on 
his  putting  a  Southerner  at  the  head  of  the  Depart 
ment  of  Justice  as  the  price  of  their  support.  It  was 
known  simply  that  one  of  the  two  members  of  the 
Cabinet  whom  the  independents  and  reformers  held 
in  unreserved  respect  had  been  dismissed. 

The  other  was  Jacob  D.  Cox,  of  Ohio,  who  from 
their  point  of  view  had  made  a  fine  record  as  Secre 
tary  of  the  Interior,  not  only  in  honestly  administer 
ing  the  affairs  of  his  department,  but  in  resisting  the 
demands  of  patronage  hunters  in  the  Patent  Office, 
the  Census  Bureau,  and  the  Indian  Office,  in  protect- 


CAUSES   FOR   PARTY   DISAFFECTION     387 

ing  his  clerks  against  political  assessments  and  in  his 
unswerving  devotion  to  civil  service  reform.  Within 
four  months  after  Hoar's  resignation,  Cox  also  re 
signed,  making  way  for  Columbus  Delano,  of  Ohio, 
a  politician  of  no  special  reputation  whose  service 
was  characterized  by  acts  of  questionable  propriety. 
Cox  is  the  chronicler  of  the  circumstances  both  of 
Hoar's  withdrawal  and  of  his  own.  He  was  in  fre 
quent  friction  with  Cameron  and  Chandler,  political 
managers  who  insisted  that  the  clerks  in  the  depart 
ments  should  contribute  a  portion  of  their  salaries  to 
the  party  funds.  Grant  had  said  at  the  time  of  Hoar's 
resignation  that  "  there  was  no  man  whom  he  loved 
more  than  Governor  Cox";  but  Chandler,  Cameron, 
and  the  rest  were  a  political  necessity  to  him  in  Con 
gress;  and  as  between  them  and  Cox  there  was  no 
choice,  Cox  had  to  go. 

Cox's  letter  of  resignation,  written  on  October  3, 
1870,  tells  the  story  frankly,  and  concisely:  "When 
Congress  adjourned  in  the  summer  I  was  credibly 
informed  that  a  somewhat  systematic  effort  would 
be  made  before  their  reassembling  in  the  winter  to 
force  a  change  in  the  policy  we  have  pursued  in  the 
Interior  Department.  The  removal  of  the  Indian 
Service  from  the  sphere  of  ordinary  political  patron 
age  has  been  peculiarly  distasteful  to  many  influen 
tial  gentlemen  in  both  houses;  and  in  order  to  enable 


388  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

you  to  carry  out  your  purposes  successfully,  I  am 
satisfied  that  you  ought  not  to  be  embarrassed  by 
any  other  causes  of  irritation  in  the  same  depart 
ment.  My  views  of  the  necessity  of  reform  in  the 
civil  service  have  brought  me  more  or  less  into  colli 
sion  with  the  plans  of  our  active  political  managers, 
and  my  sense  of  duty  has  obliged  me  to  oppose  some 
of  their  methods  of  action  through  the  arrangement." 
Hoar  never  had  the  satisfaction  of  thus  recording 
the  reasons  for  his  resignation,  but  Cox  has  saved  the 
story  as  Hoar  told  it  at  the  time:  "I  was  sitting  in 
my  office  yesterday  morning  attending  to  routine 
business,"  Hoar  said  on  the  day  the  astonished  Cox 
saw  the  newspaper  announcement  of  the  Attorney- 
General's  resignation,  "  with  no  more  thought  of 
what  was  to  come  than  you  had  at  that  moment, 
when  a  messenger  entered  with  a  letter  from  the 
President.  Opening  it  I  was  amazed  to  read  a  naked 
statement  that  he  found  himself  under  the  necessity 
of  asking  for  my  resignation.  No  explanation  of  any 
kind  was  given  or  reason  assigned.  The  request  was 
as  curt  and  as  direct  as  possible.  My  first  thought 
was  that  the  President  had  been  imposed  upon  by 
some  grave  charge  against  me.  A  thunderclap  could 
not  have  been  more  startling  to  me.  I  sat  for  a  while 
wondering  about  it,  what  it  could  mean  —  why  there 
had  been  no  warning,  no  reference  to  the  subject  in 


CAUSES   FOR   PARTY   DISAFFECTION    389 

our  almost  daily  conversations.  The  impulse  was  to 
go  at  once  and  ask  the  reasons  for  the  demand;  but 
self-respect  would  not  permit  this,  and  I  said  to  my 
self  that  I  must  let  the  matter  take  its  own  course, 
and  not  even  seem  disturbed  about  it.  I  took  up  my 
pen  to  write  the  resignation  and  found  myself  natu 
rally  framing  some  of  the  conventional  reasons  for  it, 
but  I  stopped  and  destroyed  the  sheet,  saying  to  my 
self,  '  Since  no  reasons  are  given  or  suggested  for  the 
demand  it  is  hardly  honest  to  invent  them  in  reply'; 
so  I  made  the  resignation  as  simple  and  unvarnished 
as  the  request  for  it  had  been." 

In  spite  of  this  unpleasant  experience  Hoar  never 
wavered  in  his  personal  friendship  for  Grant  and  re 
mained  his  stanch  supporter  to  the  end.  Cox  joined 
with  Trumbull,  Schurz,  and  Sumner  in  the  Liberal 
Republican  movement  eighteen  months  later. 

The  substitution  of  Akerman  and  Delano  for  Hoar 
and  Cox  lowered  still  further  in  the  estimation  of  the 
critics  a  Cabinet  which  had  been  generously  de 
nounced  at  its  beginning.  Robeson,  the  Secretary  of 
the  Navy,  a  man  of  brilliant  qualities,  was  acquiring 
a  newspaper  reputation  not  altogether  deserved  for 
extravagance  and  favoritism  in  the  administration 
of  his  department.  W.  W.  Belknap,  the  Secretary  of 
War,  was  laying  the  foundations  for  the  scandals 
which  later  led  to  his  resignation  in  the  face  of  im- 


\ 


390  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

peachment.  The  personnel  of  the  Administration  was 
held  in  light  repute,  especially  with  those  who  were 
far  cleverer  at  writing  history  than  at  making  it, 
though  the  ordinary  citizen  as  shown  in  the  election 
returns  retained  his  confidence  in  Grant. 

The  White  House  was  populous  with  military  aides 
who  performed  the  duties  usually  assigned  to  civilian 
secretaries,  —  General  Horace  Porter,  an  accom 
plished  soldier  with  an  aptitude  for  public  service  in 
which  he  afterwards  gained  high  distinction;  General 
Frederick  Dent,  the  President's  brother-in-law,  com 
panionable  but  useless;  Babcock,  likable,  brilliant, 
and  untrustworthy.  Grant  was  fond  of  them  all,  and 
had  faith  in  them,  which  in  some  cases  was  not  wholly 
justified. 

The  moment  Grant  began  to  emerge  from  obscur 
ity  at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  he  was  beset  by  rela 
tives  for  favors,  and  so  long  as  he  was  President,  he 
had  his  sisters,  uncles,  aunts,  and  cousins  on  his 
hands.  His  father  was  early  at  the  game,  as  his 
correspondence  shows.  "Father  also  wrote  about  a 
Mr.  Reed,"  Grant  writes  his  sister  from  Cairo,  in 
October,  1861.  "He  is  now  here,  and  will  probably 
be  able  to  secure  a  position.  I  do  not  want  to  be  im 
portuned  for  places.  I  have  none  to  give  and  want 
to  be  placed  under  no  obligation  to  any  one.  My 
influence,  no  doubt,  would  secure  places  with  those 


CAUSES   FOR   PARTY   DISAFFECTION     391 

under  me,  but  I  become  directly  responsible  for  the 
suitableness  of  the  appointee,  and  then  there  is  no 
telling  at  what  moment  I  may  have  to  put  my  hand 
upon  the  very  person  who  has  conferred  the  favor,  or 
the  one  recommended  by  me."  This  was  Grant's 
military  instinct  in  time  of  war,  but  when  it  came 
to  the  Presidency,  with  innumerable  places  at  his 
hand  and  no  civil  service  regulations  to  interfere 
with  their  free  distribution,  it  was  not  so  easy  to 
resist  the  appeals  of  relatives  who  wanted  office  for 
themselves  and  for  their  friends. 

He  found  his  father  postmaster  at  Covington, 
Kentucky,  and  kept  him  there.  He  made  his  brother- 
in-law  Minister  to  Denmark.  Upon  other  relatives  of 
himself  and  of  his  wife  he  good-naturedly  bestowed 
more  or  less  lucrative  positions,  not  many  in  the 
aggregate,  but  numerous  enough  to  give  color  to  the 
cry  of  "nepotism."  Sumner,  in  his  ridiculous  ha 
rangue  against  Grant  in  the  Senate  on  May  31, 1872, 
devoted  an  amazing  amount  of  space  to  showing 
"  how  the  presidential  office  has  been  used  to  advance 
his  own  family  on  a  scale  of  nepotism  dwarfing  every 
thing  of  the  kind  in  our  history  and  hardly  equaled 
in  the  corrupt  governments  where  this  abuse  has 
most  prevailed.  .  .  .  One  list  makes  the  number  of 
beneficiaries  as  many  as  forty-two  —  being  probably 
every  known  person  allied  to  the  President  either  by 


392  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

blood  or  marriage.  Persons  seeming  to  speak  for  the 
President,  or  at  least  after  careful  inquiries,  have  de 
nied  the  accuracy  of  this  list,  reducing  it  to  thirteen. 
It  will  not  be  questioned  that  there  is  at  least  a 
baker's  dozen  in  this  category  —  thirteen  relations 
of  the  President  billeted  on  the  country,  not  one 
of  whom  but  for  this  relationship  would  have  been 
brought  forward,  the  whole  contributing  a  case  of 
nepotism  not  unworthy  of  those  worst  governments 
where  office  is  a  family  possession." 

Truly  an  appalling  picture  of  the  peril  to  the  re 
public  embodied  in  consideration  shown  by  a  kindly 
disposed  relative  to  old  Jesse  Grant,  brother-in-law 
Cramer,  and  the  other  Grants  and  Dents. 

Grant  accepted  without  compunction  gifts  which 
were  showered  upon  him  by  a  grateful  people  after 
the  close  of  the  war.  Houses  in  Philadelphia  and 
Washington,  articles  of  greater  or  less  intrinsic  value, 
for  most  of  which  he  had  no  use,  and  many  of  which 
remained  unopened  in  the  White  House  basement  so 
long  as  he  remained  in  Washington.  He  saw  no  im 
propriety  in  taking  presents  even  from  those  for  whom 
he  afterwards  did  favors,  as  sometimes  happened.  So 
straightforward  was  he  in  all  his  dealings  that  it 
never  entered  his  own  mind  or  the  suspicions  of  those 
who  knew  him  best  that  there  was  any  improper  con 
nection  between  the  favor  and  the  gift,  but  traits 


CAUSES   FOR   PARTY   DISAFFECTION     393 

of  this  kind  offered  rare  ammunition  to  those  who 
needed  it  in  a  political  campaign. 

Grant  was  not  fastidious  in  his  friends.  He  picked 
them  as  he  chose  without  regard  to  others'  liking. 
When  Rawlins  died  he  lost  the  only  man  whose 
judgment  about  others  had  a  deciding  influence  on 
his  own.  No  one  could  fill  the  place  which  Rawlins 
left  in  his  affection  and  respect,  and  Grant's  associ 
ates  became  more  miscellaneous  after  death  robbed 
him  of  Rawlins  at  the  very  threshold  of  his  term. 

"What  Grant  needs,"  Charles  Eliot  Norton  wrote 
to  Curtis,  "...  is  independent,  sympathetic,  intel 
ligent,  and  trustworthy  counselors.  .  .  .  He  is  easily 
influenced  by  what  one  may  call  second-class  ideas  if 
skilfully  put  before  him;  and  his  magnanimity,  which 
was  conspicuous  during  the  war,  degenerates  into 
something  not  far  from  a  vice  in  the  peaceful  regions 
of  politics."  1  Norton  here  deftly  caught  a  phase  of 
Grant  which  few  have  seen;  and  yet  there  is  no  patent 
on  his  remedy.  It  takes  no  prescience  for  a  stranger  to 
discern  a  ruler's  need  of  suitable  advice.  The  counselor 
whom  Norton  had  in  mind  was  Curtis  or  some  one 
else  agreeable  to  both.  But  Grant  had  his  own  tastes 
and  ways;  he  could  not  be  made  over.  It  is  just  pos 
sible  that  in  the  long  run  it  was  quite  as  well. 
1  Letters  of  Charles  Eliot  Norton,  vol.  i,  p.  413.  , 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 

REFORMS  — THE  TARIFF;  THE  CIVIL  SERVICE; 
THE  INDIAN 

IT  was  open  season  for  reformers;  they  were  trying 
their  luck  at  all  sorts  of  abuses,  real  and  imaginary. 
The  protective  tariff  was  a  favorite  shot,  and  "  rev 
enue  reform"  a  popular  cry  —  a  recrudescence  of  the 
"free  trade"  policy  which  had  prevailed  since  the 
beginning  whenever  Democrats  were  in  control.  But 
now  it  was  not  limited  by  party  lines,  for  there  were 
good  Republicans  who  strongly  urged  revision  of  the 
Morrill  Tariff  enacted  just  before  the  outbreak  of 
the  Civil  War.  This  sentiment  was  strong  especially 
among  Republicans  in  the  Middle  West,  who  had 
come  to  look  upon  the  tariff  as  a  scheme  to  benefit 
New  England  and  Pennsylvania  manufacturers. 
Men  like  Allison  and  Garfield,  just  rising  into  promi 
nence  in  the  House,  urged  a  reduction  in  duties. 
Garfield,  a  student,  was  almost  a  free  trader,  an  hon 
orary  member  of  the  Cobden  Club  of  England,  but 
he  was  "practical"  in  his  conception  of  the  applica 
tion  of  reform.  "Whatever  may  be  the  personal  or 
political  consequences  to  myself,"  he  told  the  House, 
"  I  shall  try  to  act,  first  for  the  good  of  all  and  within 


REFORMS  395 

that  limitation  for  the  industrial  interests  of  the  dis 
trict  which  I  represent.  ...  If  I  can  prevent  it  I 
shall  not  submit  to  a  considerable  reduction  of  a  few 
leading  articles  in  which  my  constituents  are  deeply 
interested  when  many  others  of  a  similar  character 
are  left  untouched  or  the  rate  on  them  increased." 

The  agitation  resulted  in  the  Tariff  Act  of  1870,  in 
which  after  a  hard  struggle  the  friends  of  protection 
retained  their  advantage,  the  reduction  in  duties, 
counting  both  the  free  and  dutiable  list,  averag 
ing  only  about  five  per  cent.  The  chief  gain  the  re 
formers  made  was  in  reducing  the  duty  on  pig  iron 
from  $9  to  $7  per  ton.  The  battle  raged  around  pig 
iron.  Horace  Greeley  told  Garfield  that  if  he  could 
he  would  make  the  duty  one  hundred  dollars  a  ton, 
and  all  other  duties  in  proportion.  It  was  a  time  of 
general  recrimination.  The  friends  of  protection  then 
as  now  were  charged  with  working  for  the  "  inter 
ests,"  while  the  attitude  of  the  reformers  was  attrib 
uted  to  the  malign  influence  of  the  Cobden  Club  and 
lavish  expenditure  of  "  British  gold." 

Grant  made  no  boast  of  economic  wisdom,  but  in 
his  annual  message  of  December,  1870,  he  said  just 
enough  to  show  that  he  had  the  tariff  on  his  mind.  It 
was  the  beginning  of  the  short  session  of  an  expiring 
Congress  and  there  could  be  no  further  legislation 
for  at  least  a  year.  "  Revenue  reform  has  not  been 


396  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

defined  by  any  of  its  advocates  to  my  knowledge," 
he  wrote  with  pertinent  irony,  "  but  seems  to  be  ac 
cepted  as  something  which  is  to  supply  every  man's 
wants  without  any  cost  or  effort  on  his  part."  His 
own  opinion  was  that  "  with  the  revenue  stamp  dis 
pensed  by  postmasters  in  every  community,  a  tax 
upon  liquors  of  all  sorts,  and  tobacco  in  all  its  forms, 
and  by  a  wise  adjustment  of  the  tariff,  which  will 
put  a  duty  only  upon  those  articles  which  we  could 
dispense  with,  known  as  luxuries,  and  on  those 
which  we  use  more  of  than  we  produce,  revenue 
enough  may  be  raised  after  a  few  years  of  peace  and 
consequent  reduction  of  indebtedness  to  fulfill  all  our 
obligations.  .  .  .  Revenue  reform,  if  it  means  this,  has 
my  hearty  support.  If  it  implies  a  collection  of  all 
the  revenue  for  the  support  of  the  Government,  for 
the  payment  of  principal  and  interest  of  the  public 
debt,  pensions,  etc.,  by  directly  taxing  the  people, 
then  I  am  against  revenue  reform,  and  confidently 
believe  the  people  are  with  me.  If  it  means  failure  to 
provide  the  necessary  means  to  defray  all  the  ex 
penses  of  government  and  thereby  repudiation  of  the 
public  debt  and  pensions,  then  I  am  still  more  op 
posed  to  such  kind  of  revenue  reform." 

A  year  later  at  the  beginning  of  the  new  Congress 
he  again  took  up  the  question  urging  that  the  surplus 
be  reduced  "  in  such  a  manner  as  to  afford  the  great- 


REFORMS  397 

est  relief  to  the  greatest  number,"  and  recommending 
the  "free  list"  for  many  articles  not  produced  at 
home  "which  enter  largely  in  to  general  consumption 
through  articles  which  are  manufactured  at  home 
from  which  little  revenue  is  derived."  Should  a  fur 
ther  reduction  be  advisable,  he  suggested  "that  it 
be  made  upon  those  articles  which  can  best  bear  it 
without  disturbing  home  production  or  reducing 
the  wages  of  America's  labor." 

Two  tariff  bills  were  enacted  by  the  new  Congress ; 
one  which  Grant  signed  on  May  1,  1872,  put  tea  and 
coffee  on  the  free  list,  thus  contributing  to  "the 
free  breakfast  table"  extolled  by  Republican  protec 
tionists.  The  second,  approved  May  3,  1872,  was  a 
compromise.  It  lowered  duties  on  a  good  many  arti 
cles,  among  them  salt,  bituminous  coal,  tin,  leather, 
manufactures  of  cotton,  wool,  iron,  and  steel,  shaved 
the  stamp  taxes,  and  forgot  to  renew  the  friendless 
income  tax.  The  act,  like  all  tariff  compromises,  was 
a  log-rolling  affair.  Samuel  Bowles  wrote  one  of  his 
comforting  letters  to  his  dear  friend  Henry  L.  Dawes, 
who  managed  the  bill  in  the  House  as  chairman  of  the 
Ways  and  Means  Committee:  "You certainly  have 
won  a  brilliant  victory  on  the  tariff.  ...  It  is  not 
statesmanship  and  you  know  it.  ...  There  is  a  bet 
ter  way  of  making  a  tariff  than  by  a  combination  or 
compromise  of  all  the  cotton  mills  and  woolen  mills 


398  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

and  sheep  farmers  and  pin  factories  and  coal  mines  of 
all  the  congressional  districts  of  the  land." 

The  times  were  shaping  for  revolt.  So  virulent  were 
the  attacks  on  Grant  by  men  like  Siimner,  Schurz, 
and  Godkin,  that  it  was  easy  to  forget  what  he  had 
done  for  causes  they  had  much  at  heart.  They  were 
so  busy  throwing  remorseless  lights  on  faults  which 
now,  when  we  look  back  on  them,  seem  trifling,  that 
they  neglected  merits  better  worth  their  while,  and 
left  unpraised  his  high  accomplishments. 

Who  now  remembers  that  Grant  was  first  among 
our  Presidents  to  emphasize  the  need  of  change  in 
federal  appointments  so  that  they  should  be  made 
for  merit,  not  for  pull?  Yet  he  went  farther  on  the 
road  to  a  clean  civil  service  than  all  his  predecessors 
in  the  preceding  forty  years.  Lincoln,  like  every 
other  President  since  Jackson,  had  accepted  the 
spoils  system  as  a  commonplace  of  government.  Po 
litical  considerations  decided  almost  every  case  of 
office-filling  from  clerkships  to  the  Cabinet.  All 
through  the  war  the  trail  of  spoils  was  visible  in  mili 
tary  things.  Butler  and  McClernand  were  not  the 
only  politicians  whose  epaulettes  bore  stars.  That 
Lincoln's  final  break  with  Chase  should  be  upon  a 
piece  of  petty  patronage  was  taken  as  an  incident  in 
course.  When  Sumner  introduced  a  bill  in  1864  es 
tablishing  the  merit  system  it  was  treated  lightly  by 


REFORMS  399 

his  colleagues  as  one  of  Stunner's  fads.  Yet  at  the 
outset  of  his  Administration  Grant  tackled  this  un 
profitable  question  which  others  had  ignored. 

"Nor  have  we  had  from  any  President  a  single 
word  of  manly  protest  against  this  monstrous  sys 
tem,"  said  George  William  Curtis,  the  accepted 
leader  of  the  civil  service  reformers,  before  a  group 
of  men  who  thought  with  him  in  1869,  "  until  now 
President  Grant  says  in  words  which  in  spirit  are 
worthy  to  stand  with  those  of  Washington,*  There  has 
been  no  hesitation  in  changing  officials  in  order  to 
secure  an  efficient  execution  of  the  laws;  sometimes, 
too,  when  in  mere  party  view  undesirable  political 
results  were  likely  to  follow.  Nor  has  there  been  any 
hesitation  in  sustaining  efficient  officials  against  re 
monstrances  wholly  political.'  At  last,  thank  God, 
we  have  got  a  President  whom  trading  politicians  did 
not  elect,  and  who  is  no  more  afraid  of  them  than  he 
was  of  rebels,  and  these  manly  and  simple  words  are 
as  full  of  cheerful  promise  as  the  bulletins  of  his  ad 
vance  upon  Vicksburg." 

But  such  exuberance  of  eulogy  was  not  to  be  main 
tained,  though  in  his  second  annual  message  Grant 
denounced  the  spoils  system  as  "an  abuse  of  long 
standing"  which  he  would  like  to  see  remedied  at 
once.  He  would  have  the  merit  system  cover  not 
only  the  tenure  but  the  manner  of  making  all  ap- 


400  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

pointments.  "  There  is  no  duty  which  so  much  em 
barrasses  the  Executive  and  heads  of  departments  as 
that  of  appointments.  Nor  is  there  any  such  arduous 
and  thankless  labor  imposed  on  Senators  and  Repre 
sentatives  as  that  of  finding  places  for  constituents. 
The  present  system  does  not  secure  the  best  men  and 
often  not  even  fit  men  for  public  place.  The  eleva 
tion  and  purification  of  the  civil  service  of  the  Gov 
ernment  will  be  hailed  with  approval  by  the  whole 
people  of  the  United  States."  Here  was  a  new  note 
in  executive  communications.  A  few  weeks  later  he 
signed  the  first  Civil  Service  Reform  Bill  ever  passed 
by  Congress,  providing  for  a  commission  to  establish 
regulations  to  ascertain  the  fitness  of  candidates  for 
office;  and  he  named  Curtis  as  its  chairman. 

At  the  very  beginning  of  the  next  session,  in  De 
cember,  1871,  he  urged  on  Congress  in  a  special 
message  appropriations  to  perpetuate  the  Commis 
sion.  "  If  left  to  me  without  further  congressional 
action  the  rules  .  .  .  will  be  faithfully  executed;  but 
they  are  not  binding  without  further  legislation 
upon  my  successor.  ...  I  ask  for  all  the  strength 
which  Congress  can  give  me  to  enable  me  to  carry 
out  the  reforms  in  the  civil  service  recommended  by 
the  Commission." 

Congress,  wedded  to  the  spoils  system,  soon  cut 
off  the  appropriation  altogether.  Ardent  reformers 


REFORMS  401 

blamed  Grant  for  not  doing  more,  but  it  would  have 
taken  all  Grant's  influence  to  force  on  Congress  the 
merit  system  as  a  permanent  policy  at  that  time, 
and  he  had  none  to  spare.  Few  Senators  or  Repre 
sentatives  had  any  use  for  it.  The  strongest  of  them, 
like  Morton,  Chandler,  Conkling,  Carpenter,  and 
Cameron,  held  it  in  contempt;  most  people  did  not 
care.  It  was  the  favorite  issue  of  a  group  of  scholarly 
men,  of  high  ideals,  but  neither  numerous  nor  po 
tential  then  or  for  years  thereafter.  It  was  greatly 
to  Grant's  credit  that  he  went  so  far  along  the  path 
they  led,  yet  he  was  subject  to  attack  because  he 
did  not  force  the  unattainable.  Had  he  urged  a  civil 
service  propaganda  in  and  out  of  season  and  made 
"reform"  the  cry  of  his  Administration,  he  would 
no  doubt  have  held  the  adoration  of  essayists  and 
historians,  and  faults  which  they  have  emphasized 
might  then  have  been  excused.  But  the  time  was 
far  from  ripe  for  these  new-fangled  civil  service 
methods  and  he  had  infinitely  greater  problems 
pressingly  in  hand  —  the  maintenance  of  our  pres 
tige  abroad,  the  safeguarding  of  American  lives  and 
property  on  foreign  soil,  the  rigid  execution  of  the 
law  at  home,  the  firm  establishment  of  public  credit. 
Reform  might  wait  upon  the  growth  of  public  senti 
ment  and  the  dissemination  of  right  ideas,  but  these 
fundamental  things  involving  the  perpetuity  of  gov- 


402  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

eminent  itself  must  be  attended  to  at  once  or  not 
at  all.  All  others  must  be  made  subordinate  to 
them. 

Thus  it  came  about  that,  after  a  few  years  of  trial 
with  an  unpaid  board,  he  found  it  useless  to  keep 
up  the  fight  alone,  and  in  his  message  of  December, 
1874,  acknowledging  the  obvious,  he  frankly  an 
nounced  to  Congress  that,  if  adjournment  came 
without  positive  legislation  in  support  of  civil  serv 
ice  reform,  "I  will  regard  such  action  as  a  disap 
proval  of  the  system  and  will  abandon  it  except  so 
far  as  to  require  examinations  for  certain  appointees 
to  determine  their  fitness.  Competitive  examina 
tions  will  be  abandoned."  He  could  not  let  the  op 
portunity  go  by  without  a  dig  at  a  too  common  trait 
of  advocates  of  the  merit  system  then  and  since : 
"Generally,"  he  said,  "the  support  which  this  re 
form  receives  is  from  those  who  give  it  their  support 
only  to  find  fault  when  the  rules  are  apparently  de 
parted  from."  On  the  whole  he  thought  the  rules 
had  been  beneficial  and  had  tended  to  the  elevation 
of  the  service.  "The  gentlemen  who  have  given 
their  services  without  compensation  as  members  of 
the  board  to  devise  rules  and  regulations  for  the 
government  of  the  civil  service  of  the  country  have 
shown  much  zeal  and  earnestness  in  their  work,  and 
to  them  as  well  as  to  myself  it  will  be  a  source  of 


REFORMS  403 

mortification  if  it  is  to  be  thrown  away.  But  I  repeat 
that  it  is  impossible  to  carry  this  system  to  a  suc 
cessful  issue  without  general  approval  and  assistance 
and  positive  law  to  support  it." 

In  all  the  circumstances  this  was  common  sense, 
and  Curtis  recognized  it  later  when  he  said:  "A 
President  who  should  alone  undertake  to  reform  the 
evil  must  feel  it  to  be  the  vital  and  permanent  issue 
and  must  be  willing  to  hazard  everything  for  its  suc 
cess.  He  must  have  the  absolute  faith  and  the  in 
domitable  will  of  Luther,  'Here  stand  I;  I  can  no 
other/  .  .  .  General  Grant,  elected  by  a  spontane 
ous  patriotic  impulse,  fresh  from  the  regulated  order 
of  military  life,  and  new  to  politics  and  politicians, 
saw  the  reason  and  the  necessity  of  reform.  .  .  .  Con 
gress,  good-naturedly  tolerating  what  it  considered 
his  whim  of  inexperience,  granted  money  to  try  an 
experiment.  The  adverse  pressure  was  tremendous. 
*  I  am  used  to  pressure,'  smiled  the  soldier.  So  he 
was,  but  not  to  this  pressure.  He  was  driven  by  un 
known  and  incalculable  currents.  He  was  enveloped 
in  whirlwinds  of  sophistry,  scorn,  and  incredulity. 
He  who  upon  his  own  line  had  fought  it  out  all  sum 
mer  to  victory,  upon  a  line  absolutely  new  and  un 
known  was  naturally  bewildered  and  dismayed.  .  .  . 
It  was  indeed  a  surrender,  but  it  was  the  surrender 
of  a  champion  who  had  honestly  mistaken  both  the 


404  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

nature  and  the  strength  of  the  adversary  and  his  own 
power  of  endurance." 

Grant  did  not  then  receive  the  credit  as  a  pioneer 
which  history  must  assign  him.  He  had  no  gift  for 
advertising  his  own  wares,  and  he  was  so  lacking  in  a 
politician's  artifice  that  in  the  eyes  of  critics  some  of 
his  very  merits  wore  the  guise  of  faults.  In  this  as 
in  too  many  other  things  he  was  the  victim  of  his 
honesty. 

Grant's  interest  in  the  Indians  dates  from  his  life 
in  the  Far  West,  when  as  a  young  army  officer  he  saw 
with  what  injustice  they  were  treated  by  the  whites. 
George  W.  Childs  says  that  he  "  then  made  up  his 
mind  if  he  ever  had  any  influence  or  power  it  should 
be  exercised  to  try  to  ameliorate  their  condition." 
He  was  as  good  as  his  word.  Brief  as  was  his  first  in 
augural,  it  was  long  enough  to  contain  a  reference  to 
"the  proper  treatment  of  the  original  occupants  of 
this  land,"  as  deserving  careful  study.  "  I  will  favor 
any  course  toward  them  which  tends  to  their  civili 
zation  and  ultimate  citizenship."  He  appointed  an 
Indian  Commission  headed  by  William  Welsh,  of 
Philadelphia,  whom  Hayes  later  made  Minister  to 
England,  and  composed  largely  of  leading  members 
of  the  Society  of  Friends,  which  he  pointed  out  in  his 
annual  message  of  December,  18G9,  "  is  well  known  as 
having  succeeded  in  living  in  peace  with  the  Indians 


REFORMS  405 

in  the  early  settlement  of  Pennsylvania  while  their 
white  neighbors  of  other  sects  in  other  sections  were 
constantly  embroiled."  He  adopted  the  novel  policy 
of  giving  all  the  agencies  to  such  religious  denomina 
tions  as  had  established  missionaries  among  the  In 
dians,  the  societies  selecting  their  own  agents  subject 
to  the  approval  of  the  Executive.  In  his  second 
annual  message,  he  wrote:  "I  entertain  the  confi 
dent  hope  that  the  policy  now  pursued  will  in  a  few 
years  bring  all  the  Indians  upon  reservations  where 
they  will  live  in  houses  and  have  schoolhouses  and 
churches  and  will  be  pursuing  peaceful  and  self- 
sustaining  avocations  and  where  they  may  be  visited 
by  the  law-abiding  white  man  with  the  same  im 
punity  that  he  now  visits  the  civilized  white  settle 
ments."  Here  we  have  the  first  serious  attempt  at 
a  humanitarian  treatment  of  the  Indian  by  the 
Government  —  the  germ  of  whatever  benefit  has 
come  to  him  as  the  nation's  ward.  Yet  Grant  was 
duly  censured  because  an  Indian  ring  infested  the 
Interior  Department  as  had  been  the  case  before  his 
day  and  has  been  ever  since. 

"  The  most  troublesome  men  in  public  life,"  said 
Grant  a  few  years  later,  "  are  those  over-righteous 
people  who  see  no  motives  in  other  people's  ac 
tions  but  evil  motives,  who  believe  all  public  life  is 
corrupt,  and  nothing  is  well  done  unless  they  do  it 


406  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

themselves.  They  are  narrow-headed  men,  their  two 
eyes  so  close  together  that  they  can  look  out  of  the 
same  gimlet-hole  without  winking."  Fish  in  his  "Di 
ary"  tells  how  during  the  San  Domingo  controversy 
Grant  remarked:  "It  is  strange  that  men  cannot  al 
low  others  to  differ  with  them,  without  charging  cor 
ruption  as  the  cause  of  difference.  .  .  .  There  is  little 
inducement  other  than  a  sense  of  duty  in  holding 
public  position  in  this  country  —  but  for  that  I  do 
not  know  what  there  is  to  induce  a  man  to  take  either 
the  place  I  hold,  or  one  in  the  Cabinet,  and  were  it 
not  for  that  I  would  resign  immediately."  Remarks 
which  help  us  better  to  understand  the  loyalty  with 
which  he  stood  behind  those  men  in  his  Administra 
tion  who  were  most  violently  assailed. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX 

THE  GREELEY  EPISODE 

AMONG  the  public  men  of  the  Reconstruction  period 
Carl  Schurz  had  a  place  peculiarly  his  own.  Never  a 
force  of  much  constructive  influence  he  was  for  years 
a  striking  figure,  an  irrepressible  critic,  an  apostle  of 
unrest,  who  though  not  popular  himself  had  popu 
lar  repute.  A  Prussian  by  birth,  a  revolutionist  and 
refugee  of  1848,  he  came  to  comprehend  the  theory  of 
American  institutions  as  few  Americans  have  com 
prehended  it,  yet  in  the  very  atmosphere  of  liberty 
he  remained  a  revolutionist  and  dissenter  to  the  end. 
He  never  became  completely  Americanized  or  local 
ized.  He  lacked  the  "homing  instinct."  After  leav 
ing  his  native  country,  he  lived  successively  in  Swit 
zerland,  France,  and  England,  and  coming  to  the 
United  States  in  1852  he  fluttered  over  Pennsylvania, 
Wisconsin,  Michigan,  and  Missouri,  before  finally 
alighting  in  New  York.  He  never  remained  long  with 
any  political  group  or  respected  party  fealty. 

Minister  to  Spain  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  and 
afterwards  a  brigadier-general  of  volunteers,  he  was 
unsparing  in  censure  of  his  military  and  civilian  su 
periors.  His  admonitions  at  a  trying  moment  in  the 


408  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

darkest  days  of  the  struggle  elicited  from  the  long- 
suffering  Lincoln  a  caustic  rebuke  which  has  become 
an  epistolary  classic.1 

As  an  editor  in  Missouri  directly  after  the  war, 
Schurz  supported  radical  Reconstruction  measures. 
As  Johnson's  messenger  to  the  South  in  1865,  he 
made  a  report  which  was  used  by  radical  leaders  in 
Congress  against  Johnson's  policies.  He  was  elected 
a  Republican  Senator  in  1869;  yet  he  was  hardly  in 
his  seat  before  he  broke  with  Grant,  joining  Sumner 
in  opposition  to  the  San  Domingo  Treaty.  He  voted 
for  all  except  the  last  of  the  enforcement  acts,  which 
he  held  to  be  unconstitutional,  and  had  the  satisfac 
tion  years  later  of  seeing  the  Supreme  Court  declare 

1  "  I  have  just  received  and  read  your  letter  of  the  26th.  The 
purport  of  it  is  that  we  lost  the  last  elections  and  the  Administra 
tion  is  failing  because  the  war  is  unsuccessful,  and  that  I  must  not 
flatter  myself  that  I  am  not  justly  to  blame  for  it.  I  certainly 
know  that  if  the  war  fails,  the  Administration  fails,  and  that  I  will 
be  blamed  for  it,  whether  I  deserve  it  or  not.  And  I  ought  to  be 
blamed  if  I  could  do  better.  You  think  I  could  do  better;  there 
fore  you  blame  me  already.  I  think  I  could  not  do  better,  there 
fore  I  blame  you  for  blaming  me.  I  understand  you  now  to  be 
willing  to  accept  the  help  of  men  who  are  not  Republicans,  pro 
vided  they  have  '  heart  in  it.'  Agreed.  I  want  no  others.  But  who 
is  to  be  the  judge  of  hearts  or  of  'heart  in  it'?  If  I  must  discard 
my  own  judgment  and  take  yours,  I  must  also  take  that  of  others; 
and  by  the  time  I  should  reject  all  I  should  be  advised  to  reject, 
I  should  have  none  left,  Republicans  or  others  —  not  even  your 
self.  For  be  assured,  my  dear  sir,  there  are  men  who  'have  heart 
in  it'  that  think  you  are  performing  your  part  as  poorly  as  you 
think  I  am  performing  mine."  (Letter  to  Carl  Schurz,  November 
24,  1862.  Lincoln's  Complete  Works,  vol.  n,  p.  257.) 


THE   GREELEY   EPISODE  409 

unconstitutional  acts  for  which  he  voted  as  well  as 
that  to  which  he  was  opposed.  He  was  a  lucid  and 
logical  writer,  a  master  of  English  style,  a  speaker  of 
unusual  ability  when  thoroughly  prepared,  a  critic,  a 
musician,  a  man  of  culture  who  in  another  country 
might  have  played  a  large  part  in  Government,  but 
whose  talents  were  ineffective  here  because  of  his  in 
satiate  appetite  for  opposition  amounting  to  a  pas 
sion  for  minorities. 

Schurz  more  than  any  other  single  individual  was 
responsible  for  the  Liberal  Republican  movement  of 
1872.  It  was  at  his  instigation  that  the  call  was  is 
sued  for  the  national  convention  which  nominated 
Greeley  in  Cincinnati.  Dissent  in  Missouri  depended 
on  conditions  peculiar  to  the  State,  just  as  dissent 
in  Illinois,  New  York,  Massachusetts,  and  other 
places  was  determined  largely  by  local  conditions  in 
every  case.  But  it  happened  that  Missouri  furnished 
the  earliest  opportunity  for  organized  protest  against 
Administration  tendencies.  On  a  question  of  local 
interest  —  the  reenfranchisement  of  Southern  sym 
pathizers  —  Republican  dissenters  nominated  for 
Governor  B.  Gratz  Brown,  and  he  was  elected  by 
a  combination  with  the  Democrats,  thus  turning  the 
State  over  to  Democratic  control.  Frank  P.  Blair 
had  already  been  chosen  Senator. 

There  was  nothing  national  in  the  issue  of  reen- 


410  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

franchisement,  for  Grant  had  urged  a  general  am 
nesty,  and  Congress  was  on  the  point  of  granting  it, 
but  Schurz  had  become  an  advocate  of  tariff  reform, 
and  that  was  made  a  plank  in  his  new  party  plat 
form.  Greeley,  in  the  "  New  York  Tribune,"  char 
acterized  the  Missouri  Liberals  as  bolters.  Schurz, 
perceiving  signs  of  discontent  in  other  States  as  the 
time  for  electing  a  new  President  approached,  con 
vened  his  new  party  at  Jefferson  City  on  January  24, 
1872.  The  name  of  "Liberal  Republicans"  was  as 
sumed  and  a  call  was  issued  to  all  Republicans  op 
posing  .the  Administration  and  favoring  reform  to 
meet  in  Cincinnati  on  the  first  Wednesday  in  May. 
There  was  plenty  of  material  at  hand  for  such  a 
gathering,  although  there  was  no  common  bond  of 
sympathy  except  dissatisfaction  with  Grant  and  his 
Administration.  In  New  York  there  was  a  factional 
quarrel.  The  two  United  States  Senators  were  in 
fighting  mood.  Reuben  E.  Fenton,  a  crafty  political 
manipulator,  had  been  the  leader  of  the  State  while 
Governor  from  1865  to  1869,  but  Conkling  had 
gained  ascendancy  with  the  Administration  in  Wash 
ington.  Greeley,  always  afflicted  with  the  itch  for 
office,  was  Fenton's  candidate  for  Governor  in  1870, 
but  was  beaten  in  convention.  In  the  convention  of 
1871  there  was  a  titanic  struggle  for  supremacy,  and 
Conkling,  taking  command  in  person  of  his  forces 


THE   GREELEY   EPISODE  411 

on  the  floor,  had  driven  the  friends  of  Greeley  and 
Fenton  out,  and  assumed  full  control  of  the  party 
organization. 

Greeley  had  long  been  querulous  about  the  Na 
tional  Administration.  Both  he  and  Fenton  now 
attributed  their  defeat  to  Conkling's  use  of  federal 
patronage  and  to  Grant's  support.  They  thus  were 
ripe  for  the  revolt  which  had  been  shaping  in  the 
West.  It  was  hard  for  Greeley,  the  most  vociferous 
advocate  of  high  protection  in  the  United  States,  to 
swallow  the  Missouri  Liberals'  declaration  for  "a 
genuine  reform  of  the  tariff,"  but  let  that  question 
be  laid  aside,  he  intimated  in  the  "  Tribune,"  "  and 
we  will  go  to  Cincinnati."  In  due  season  he  signed 
the  response  of  Eastern  Republicans  to  the  Missouri 
invitation,  but  outside  their  own  State  the  New  York 
men  in  the  convention  found  few  except  free  traders. 

The  Cincinnati  gathering  did  not  consist  of  dele 
gates  regularly  chosen;  but  any  person  of  Republican 
antecedents  was  permitted  to  participate.  No  such 
collection  of  curiously  assorted  men  ever  before  or 
since  has  undertaken  to  organize  a  political  party. 
The  Liberal  Republican  movement,  in  so  far  as  it 
embodied  a  real  passion  for  reform,  was  peculiarly 
the  product  of  writers  for  the  press. 

Schurz  was  an  editor  and  pamphleteer  by  prefer 
ence,  and  with  him  in  the  instigation  of  revolt  were 


412  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Samuel  Bowles,  of  the  "Springfield  Republican," 
Murat  Halstead,  of  the  "Cincinnati  Commercial/' 
Joseph  Medill,  Horace  White,  of  the  "  Chicago  Trib 
une,"  Alexander  K.  McClure,  of  the  "  Philadelphia 
Times,"  E.  L.  Godkin,  of  the  "Nation,"  and  Wil 
liam  Cullen  Bryant,  of  the  "New  York  Evening 
Post."  On  some  things  they  were  agreed,  on  others 
they  were  wide  apart.  The  movement  at  its  incep 
tion  was  under  the  guidance  of  writers,  theorists, 
dissenters,  and  doctrinaires,  most  of  whom  had  done 
a  vast  amount  of  thinking  about  how  the  Govern 
ment  ought  to  be  run,  but  few  of  whom  had  ever 
really  tried  their  hand  at  helping  run  it.  Almost 
without  exception  in  the  beginning  they  were  men 
of  fine  ideals,  but  as  the  organization  took  shape,  it 
drew  in  the  customary  quota  of  disappointed  and 
discredited  politicians. 

There  were  a  few  men  with  both  real  political  ex 
perience  and  high  principles  like  John  M.  Palmer 
and  Lyman  Trumbull,  of  Illinois,  Stanley  Matthews, 
George  Hoadley,  and  Jacob  D.  Cox,  of  Ohio,  Austin 
Blair,  the  War  Governor  of  Michigan.  Finally  there 
were  men  like  David  A.  Wells,  Theodore  Tilton,  Ed 
ward  Atkinson,  Frank  W.  Bird,  and  General  William 
F.  Bartlett,  some  of  them  faddists,  none  of  them  with 
experience  in  elective  office.  Sumner,  David  Davis, 
and  Charles  Francis  Adams  were  among  the  later 


THE   GREELEY  EPISODE  413 

acquisitions.  The  germinating  force  was  in  the  edi 
torial  rooms  of  the  "  Chicago  Tribune,"  the  "  Spring 
field  Republican,"  the  "  Cincinnati  Commercial," 
the  "  Nation,"  the  "  New  York  Evening  Post,"  the 
"  New  York  Tribune,"  and  the  "  Louisville  Courier- 
Journal,"  this  last  a  Democratic  paper  rich  in  the 
fulminations  of  Henry  Watterson.  Some  of  these 
were  less  intense  in  their  allegiance  at  the  beginning 
than  others,  but  all  in  time  joined  in  the  cry  against 
Grant,  though  most  of  them  were  sorely  disappointed 
in  the  work  of  their  convention. 

Had  they  realized  it  they  were  doomed  to  failure 
from  the  start,  for  they  were  lacking,  not  only  in  the 
sagacity  of  the  professional  politician,  but  in  the  im 
pulse  of  an  absorbing  moral  issue.  Perhaps  their 
greatest  lack  was  in  a  vivid  personality  to  embody 
their  conception  of  reform.  It  is  strange  that  observ 
ant  newspaper  editors  could  have  imagined  a  success 
ful  campaign  against  a  party  entrenched  in  power, 
under  such  leadership  as  that  to  which  they  were 
confined,  —  Charles  Francis  Adams,  Lyman  Trum- 
bull,  David  Davis,  Horace  Greeley,  —  all  men  without 
organized  political  or  personal  following  and  none 
except  Davis  with  practical  political  sense. 

"The  office-seeking  fraternity,"  says  Horace 
White,  "were  mostly  supporters  of  Davis,  whose 
appearance  as  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency  was 


414  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

extremely  offensive  to  the  original  promoters  of  the 
movement.  As  a  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  his 
incursion  into  the  field  of  politics,  unheralded,  but 
not  unprecedented,  was  an  indecorum.  Moreover, 
his  supporters  had  not  been  early  movers  in  the 
ranks  of  reform.  .  .  .  Davis's  chances  were  early 
demolished  by  the  editorial  fraternity,  who,  at  a  din 
ner  at  Murat  Halstead's  house,  resolved  that  they 
would  not  support  him  if  nominated,  and  caused 
that  fact  to  be  made  known.  Greeley's  candidacy 
had  not  been  taken  seriously  by  the  editors  at  Hal- 
stead's  dinner-party. .  .  .  Adams  and  Trumbull  were 
the  only  men  supposed  by  us  to  be  within  the  sphere 
of  nomination,  and  the  chances  of  Adams  were 
deemed  the  better  of  the  two.  We  had  yet  to  learn 
that  there  are  occasions  and  crowds  where  personal 
oddity  and  a  flash  of  genius  under  an  old  white  hat 
are  more  potent  than  high  ancestry  or  approved 
statesmanship,  or  both  those  qualifications  joined 
together."  1 

The  austere  Adams  at  least  was  wise  enough  to 
recognize  his  own  defects  as  a  candidate.  "  If  I  am  to 
be  negotiated  for  and  have  assurances  given  that  I 
am  honest,  you  will  be  so  kind  as  to  draw  me  out  of 
that  crowd,"  he  wrote  to  David  A.  Wells  as  he  was 
sailing  for  Europe  to  attend  the  Court  of  Geneva 
1  Life  of  Lyman  Trumbull,  pp.  380-81. 


THE   GREELEY   EPISODE  415 

Arbitration,  a  fortnight  before  the  convention.  ...  "I 
never  had  a  moment's  belief  that  when  it  came  to 
the  point,  any  one  so  entirely  isolated  as  I  am  from 
all  political  associations  of  any  kind  could  be  made 
acceptable  as  a  candidate  for  public  office;  but  I  am 
so  unlucky  as  to  value  that  independence  more  highly 
than  the  elevation  which  is  brought  by  a  sacrifice  of 
it.  ...  If  the  good  people  who  meet  at  Cincinnati 
really  believe  that  they  need  such  an  anomalous 
being  as  I  am  (which  I  do  not),  they  must  express 
it  in  a  manner  to  convince  me  of  it,  or  all  their  labor 
will  be  thrown  away." 

Impossible  material  for  a  successful  candidate  for 
votes,  yet  such  was  the  idealistic  and  impractical 
character  of  the  disinterested  devotees  of  the  new 
cult  that  the  optimistic  Bowles  made  this  deadly 
letter  public  in  the  innocent  belief  that  it  would  bring 
about  the  writer's  nomination  and  election. 

Not  only  did  Greeley  capture  the  nomination, 
but  he  kept  out  of  the  platform  any  endorsement  of 
tariff  reform,  the  one  live  issue  outside  Grant's  per 
sonality  upon  which  the  promoters  of  the  convention 
came  nearest  to  being  united.  He  was  the  most  ir 
reconcilable  protectionist  in  the  United  States;  he 
was  far  less  friendly  than  Grant  to  civil  service  re 
form,  and  had  been  profanely  emphatic  in  expressing 
his  contempt  for  the  merit  test.  It  was  a  cruel 


416  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

awakening  for  the  protagonists  of  revolt,  many  of 
them  scholars  loyal  to  the  universities,  who  with  wry 
faces  found  themselves  straggling  behind  the  fan 
tastic  banner  of  the  most  trenchant  opponent  of 
the  theories  they  had  most  at  heart,  and  marveling 
at  their  complaisance  as  they  recalled  the  pungent 
prayer  with  which  tradition  says  he  used  to  enliven 
the  youthful  meditations  of  aspiring  writers  for  the 
"Tribune,"  "Of  all  horned  cattle,  God  deliver  me 
from  the  college  graduate!" 

Stanley  Matthews,  the  temporary  chairman,  went 
back  to  Grant  as  soon  as  possible,  writing  to  a  friend : 
"  I  am  greatly  chagrined  at  the  whole  matter,  my 
own  participation  in  it  included,  and  have  concluded 
.  .  .  that  as  a  politician  and  a  President-maker  I  am 
not  a  success."  William  Cullen  Bryant  wrote  to 
Trumbull:  "We  who  know  Mr.  Greeley  know  that 
his  administration,  should  he  be  elected,  cannot  be 
otherwise  than  shamefully  corrupt.  .  .  .  There  is 
no  abuse  or  extravagance  into  which  that  man 
through  the  infirmity  of  his  judgment  may  not  be 
betrayed.  It  is  wonderful  how  little  in  some  of  his 
vagaries  the  scruples  which  would  influence  other 
men  of  no  exemplary  integrity  restrain  him."  Trum 
bull  could  think  of  no  better  reason  for  supporting 
him  than  that  he  was  "  an  honest  but  confiding  man  " 
who  with  proper  surroundings  "  would  be  an  im 
provement  on  what  we  have." 


THE   GREELEY   EPISODE  417 

"  The  wiser  heads  in  the  convention  were  stunned," 
wrote  Horace  White.  "  Of  all  the  things  which  could 
possibly  happen,  this  was  the  one  thing  which  every 
body  supposed  could  not  happen."  Carl  Schurz, 
chagrined  at  the  result,  wrote  Greeley  inviting  him 
to  withdraw,  presenting  all  the  discouraging  fea 
tures,  "  and  now  if  the  developments  of  the  campaign 
should  be  such  as  to  disappoint  your  hopes,  it  shall 
not  be  my  fault  if  you  are  deceived  about  the  real 
state  of  things."  Yet  Schurz  would  support  Greeley 
"  in  a  modified  and  guarded  manner."  So  satisfied 
was  he  of  "  the  necessity  of  defeating  Grant  and  dis 
solving  party  organization  "  that  he  was  all  ready  to 
use  any  instrument  for  the  purpose,  looking  forward 
"  with  a  hopefulness  bordering  on  enthusiasm  to  the 
good  things  which  will  grow  out  of  the  confusion 
following  on  Greeley 's  election"  —  an  opportunist 
view  which  Godkin  could  not  accept,  glad  as  he 
should  be  to  join  Schurz  in  supporting  Greeley, 
"  Schurz  being  the  one  man  in  American  politics  who 
inspires  Godkin  with  some  hope  concerning  them." 
Parke  Godwin  was  even  more  bitter:  "  The  man  is  a 
charlatan  from  top  to  bottom,  and  the  smallest  kind 
of  a  charlatan,  from  no  other  motive  than  a  weak  and 
puerile  vanity.  His  success  in  politics  would  be  the 
success  of  whoever  is  most  wrong  in  theory  and  most 
corrupt  in  practice.  .  .  .  Grant  and  his  crew  are  bad 


418  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

—  but  hardly  so  bad  as  Greeley  and  his  would  be." 
The  country  surely  was  in  sorry  straits  when  those 
who  had  constituted  themselves  its  only  hope  were 
limited  to  such  alternatives. 

The  free  traders  in  New  York  held  a  mass  meeting 
at  Steinway  Hall,  invited  to  a  conference  those  who 
favored  a  less  rigid  protective  policy  than  Greeley 's, 
and  nominated  William  S.  Groesbeck  for  President. 
The  invitation  was  signed  by  Carl  Schurz,  perma 
nent  chairman  of  the  Cincinnati  Convention,  J.  D. 
Cox,  W.  C.  Bryant,  D.  A.  Wells,  Oswald  Ottendorfer, 
and  Jacob  Brinkerhoff  —  dissenters  from  dissent,  who 
in  due  time  came  back  to  Greeley  after  the  Democrats 
at  Baltimore  had  endorsed  the  Cincinnati  ticket. 

An  "Address  to  the  People  of  the  United  States" 
was  issued  at  Cincinnati  to  launch  the  platform  of 
principles.  It  was  an  undiluted  denunciation  of 
Grant:  "The  President  of  the  United  States  has 
openly  used  the  powers  and  opportunities  of  his  high 
office  for  the  promotion  of  personal  ends.  He  has 
kept  notoriously  corrupt  and  unworthy  men  in 
places  of  power  and  responsibilities  to  the  detriment 
of  the  public  interest.  He  has  used  the  public  service 
of  the  Government  as  machinery  of  corruption  and 
personal  influence  and  has  interfered  with  tyrannical 
arrogance  in  the  public  affairs  of  States  and  munici 
palities.  He  has  rewarded  with  influential  and  lucra- 


THE   GREELEY  EPISODE  419 

tive  offices  men  who  had  acquired  his  favor  by  valua 
ble  presents,  thus  stimulating  the  demoralization  of 
our  political  life  by  his  conspicuous  example.  He  has 
shown  himself  deplorably  unequal  to  the  task  im 
posed  upon  him  by  the  necessities  of  the  country  and 
culpably  careless  of  the  responsibilities  of  his  high 
office."  His  partisans  were  denounced  for  standing 
"  in  the  way  of  necessary  investigations  and  indis 
pensable  reforms";  for  keeping  alive  "the  passions 
and  resentments  of  the  late  Civil  War  .  .  .  instead 
of  appealing  to  the  better  instincts  and  latent  patriot 
ism  of  the  Southern  people";  for  "base  sycophancy 
to  the  dispenser  of  executive  power  and  patronage, 
unworthy  of  republican  freemen." 

Following  this  denunciatory  address  the  platform 
reads  tamely.  It  demanded  the  "  immediate  and  ab 
solute  removal  of  all  disabilities  imposed  on  account 
of  the  rebellion";  "local  self-government  with  im 
partial  suffrage";  "the  supremacy  of  the  civil  over 
the  military  authority";  the  protection  of  the  habeas 
corpus;  "  a  thorough  reform  of  the  civil  service,"  to 
which  end  "  it  is  imperatively  required  that  no  Presi 
dent  shall  be  a  candidate  for  reelection";  the  main 
tenance  of  the  public  credit;  a  speedy  return  to  specie 
payments;  and  an  end  "  to  further  grants  of  land  to 
railroads  or  other  corporations." 

The  extraordinary  plank  in  this  reform  platform 


420  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

was  the  obvious  straddle  in  regard  to  the  tariff: 
"  Recognizing  that  there  are  in  our  midst  honest  but 
irreconcilable  differences  of  opinion  with  regard  to  the 
respective  systems  of  protection  and  free  trade,  we 
remit  the  discussion  of  the  subject  to  the  people  in 
their  congressional  districts  and  the  decision  of  Con 
gress  thereon,  wholly  free  from  executive  interfer 
ence  or  dictation." 

This  was  an  admirable  declaration  of  principles. 
It  would  have  been  more  impressive  had  it  not  been 
that  some  of  its  most  commendable  paragraphs  were 
duplicated  in  the  Republican  platform  adopted  at 
Philadelphia  on  June  5  and  6,  when  Grant  was  re- 
nominated  with  great  enthusiasm,  and  by  acclama 
tion.  The  Republicans  favored  a  reform  of  the  civil 
service,  system  "  by  laws  which  shall  abolish  the  evils 
of  patronage  and  make  honesty,  efficiency,  and  fidel 
ity  the  essential  qualifications  for  public  positions 
without  practically  creating  a  life- tenure  of  office." 
They  opposed  "  further  grants  of  the  public  lands  to 
corporations  and  monopolies";  declared  that  rev 
enue,  "  except  so  much  as  may  be  derived  from  a  tax 
upon  tobacco  and  liquors,  should  be  raised  by  duties 
upon  importations,  the  details  of  which  should  be  so 
adjusted  as  to  aid  in  securing  remunerative  wages  to 
labor  and  promote  the  industries,  prosperity,  and 
growth  of  the  whole  country." 


THE   GREELEY   EPISODE  421 

His  own  party  at  Philadelphia  was  so  thoroughly 
united  behind  Grant  that  the  only  suggestion  of  di 
vision  was  in  the  nomination  for  Vice-President.  Col- 
fax  would  doubtless  have  been  named  again  had  he 
not  once  withdrawn  and  then  changed  his  mind  after 
Henry  Wilson,  of  Massachusetts,  had  been  brought 
forward  as  a  candidate.  While  Speaker  of  the  House 
in  Johnson's  time  and  for  a  while  Vice-President 
with  Grant,  he  had  stood  well  in  general  esteem,  but 
of  late  he  had  incurred  the  distrust  of  the  represent 
ative  newspaper  correspondents  at  Washington,  a 
body  as  quick  then  as  their  successors  now  in  detect 
ing  false  notes  in  our  public  men.  Their  efforts  more 
than  any  other  one  thing  gave  Wilson  the  nomina 
tion;  a  choice  of  special  significance  because  Wilson's 
colleague,  Sumner,  only  a  few  days  before,  in  the 
speech  of  May  31,  had  portrayed  Grant  in  riotous 
violence  of  color  as  a  military  usurper  debauching 
his  office  with  an  unholy  zest  which  any  Roman 
Emperor  might  have  envied  him.  The  Democrats  at 
Baltimore,  on  July  9,  endorsed  Greeley,  thus  com 
pleting  an  incongruous  picture;  for  they  could  not 
have  picked  another  man  so  radically  at  odds  with 
every  political  theory  which  they  held.  His  only 
point  of  sympathy  with  either  convention  was  dis 
content  with  Grant  —  no  unusual  attitude  with  him; 
for  he  had  been  an  unsparing  critic  of  every  Presi- 


422  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

dent  for  thirty  years,  no  matter  whether  his  own 
party  or  the  opposition  happened  to  be  in  power. 

Greeley  really  never  had  a  chance  of  election  from 
the  day  he  was  nominated,  but  so  eager  was  the 
campaign  against  Grant  that  for  a  time  some  even  of 
the  most  sagacious  of  the  seasoned  political  observers 
were  in  doubt.  Sumner's  assault  of  May  31  furnished 
a  text  for  hardened  orators  and  writers  of  the  opposi 
tion. 

"  Not  only  are  Constitution  and  law  disregarded," 
cried  Sumner,  "but  the  presidential  office  itself  is 
treated  as  little  more  than  a  plaything  and  a  per 
quisite  —  when -not  the  former,  then  the  latter.  Here 
the  details  are  ample;  showing  how  from  the  begin 
ning  this  exalted  trust  has  dropped  to  be  a  personal 
indulgence,  where  palace  cars,  fast  horses,  and  sea 
side  loiterings  figure  more  than  duties;  how  personal 
aims  and  objects  have  been  more  prominent  than  the 
public  interests;  .  .  .  how  in  the  same  spirit  office  has 
been  conferred  upon  those  from  whom  he  had  re 
ceived  gifts  or  benefits,  thus  making  the  country 
repay  his  personal  obligations;  how  personal  devo 
tion  to  himself  rather  than  public  or  party  service 
has  been  made  the  standard  of  favor;  how  the  vast 
appointing  power  conferred  by  the  Constitution  for 
the  general  welfare  has  been  employed  at  his  will 
to  promote  his  schemes,  to  reward  his  friends,  to 


THE   GREELEY   EPISODE  423 

punish  his  opponents,  and  to  advance  his  election  to 
a  second  term;  how  all  these  assumptions  have  ma 
tured  in  a  personal  government,  semi-military  in 
character  and  breathing  the  military  spirit,  being 
a  species  of  Csesarism  or  personalism,  abhorrent  to 
republican  institutions,  where  subservience  to  the 
President  is  the  supreme  law. 

"...  I  protest  against  him  as  radically  unfit  for 
the  presidential  office,  being  essentially  military  in 
nature,  without  experience  in  civil  life,  without  apti 
tude  for  civil  duties,  and  without  knowledge  of  re 
publican  institutions." 

Thus  "Csesarism"  became  the  cry  against  the 
most  diffident  and  unassuming  soldier  of  his  genera 
tion,  one  who  signalized  his  first  night  at  the  White 
House  by  dispensing  with  the  squad  of  soldiers  de 
tailed  there  as  a  night  guard  and  ordering  away  from 
Washington  all  the  troops  on  duty  there  at  the  time 
of  his  inauguration.  "  I  was  trying  last  night,"  said 
Matthew  H.  Carpenter  replying  to  Sumner's  tirade, 
"to  recall  a  single  instance  if  in  conversation  in  re 
gard  to  the  late  war  I  had  heard  General  Grant  al 
lude  to  himself,  and  I  could  not.  I  have  heard  him 
speak  in  the  most  glowing  terms  of  his  comrades  in 
arms.  I  have  heard  him  speak  of  the  exploits  of 
Sherman.  I  have  heard  him  allude  to  what  was  done 
by  Logan,  McPherson,  and  many  other  officers  of 


424  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

the  Union  army.  I  never  heard  him  say,  speaking 
of  a  battle,  'at  such  a  juncture  I  thought  I  would  do 
so  and  so/  or,  '  I  ordered  a  battalion  this  way  or 
that,'  or,  '  I  turned  the  scale  by  such  a  maneuver/ 
I  never  heard  him  allude  to  himself  in  connection 
with  the  war.  I  believe  you  might  go  to  the  White 
House  and  live  with  him  and  converse  about  the 
war  day  after  day,  and  you  never  would  know  from 
anything  he  said  that  he  was  in  the  war  at  all." 

Such  is  the  uniform  testimony  of  those  who  knew 
him  best.  It  is  true  that  his  companionships  were 
not  all  over-nice;  that  instead  of  spending  his  sum 
mers  in  Washington  he  spent  them  at  the  seashore, 
as  has  been  the  habit  of  almost  every  President  since 
his  day;  that  he  liked  to  drive  fast  horses  as  when  a 
boy  on  his  father's  place;  that  he  accepted  presents 
indiscriminately  as  a  thing  of  course;  that  he  had 
relatives  in  the  public  service;  but  if  these  were  faults 
deserving  censure,  they  were  faults  of  judgment,  not 
of  malign  intent,  and  history  will  weigh  them  lightly. 

Grant  was  keenly  sensitive  to  the  attacks  upon 
him,  but  he  never  had  the  slightest  doubt  of  his  suc 
cess,  though  the  most  experienced  political  observ 
ers  had  their  blue  days.  George  W.  Childs  tells  how 
during  the  campaign  Wilson,  who  had  just  made 
a  tour  of  the  country,  came  to  his  house  in  Phila 
delphia  greatly  depressed.  "  I  went  to  see  General 


THE   GREELEY   EPISODE  425 

Grant  and  I  told  him  about  this  feeling  particularly 
as  coming  from  Senator  Wilson.  The  General  said 
nothing,  but  he  sent  for  a  map  of  the  United  States. 
He  laid  the  map  down  on  the  table  and  went  over  it 
with  a  pencil  and  said,  '  We  will  carry  this  State,  that 
State,  and  that  State  ;  until  he  nearly  covered  the 
whole  United  States.  It  occurred  to  me  he  might  as 
well  put  them  all  in."  He  wrote  to  Washburne  in 
August  that  even  if  Greeley  remained  in  the  field 
till  November,  he  would  not  carry  a  single  Northern 
State. 

His  foresight  was  justified.  The  only  States  Gree 
ley  carried  were  Maryland,  Georgia,  Missouri,  and 
Kentucky.  Grant  received  286  electoral  votes  out 
of  349.  His  popular  vote  was  3,597,132,  an  increase 
over  his  vote  in  1868  of  484,299. 

It  was  a  cruel  thing  for  Greeley.  He  who  had 
rioted  all  his  life  in  searing  Presidents  and  candidates 
cringed  now  when  he  felt  his  own  soul  pressed 
against  the  iron.  The  Scriptural  admonition,  that  he 
who  lives  by  the  sword  shall  perish  by  the  sword, 
was  never  more  convincingly  exemplified.  "I  was 
the  worst  beaten  man  who  ever  ran  for  high  office," 
he  wrote  Colonel  Tappan,  "  and  I  have  been  assailed 
so  bitterly  that  I  hardly  knew  whether  I  was  running 
for  President  or  the  Penitentiary.  In  the  darkest 
hour  my  suffering  wife  left  me,  none  too  soon,  for  she 


426  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

had  suffered  too  deeply  and  too  long.  I  laid  her  in  the 
ground  with  hard,  dry  eyes.  Well,  I  am  used  up;  I 
cannot  see  before  me.  I  have  slept  little  for  weeks, 
and  my  eyes  are  still  hard  to  close,  while  they  soon 
open  again."  Before  the  Electoral  College  met  he 
died  broken  in  heart  and  mind. 

But  Grant's  great  personal  triumph  had  its  taste 
of  wormwood  too;  for  he  had  been  through  slander 
and  vituperation  such  as  seldom  comes  to  public  men. 
How  it  had  eaten  into  him  became  plain  to  his 
countrymen  a  few  months  later  when  they  read  the 
closing  words  of  his  second  inaugural :  — 

"  I  did  not  ask  for  place  or  position,  and  was  en 
tirely  without  influence  or  the  acquaintance  of  per 
sons  of  influence,  but  was  resolved  to  perform  my 
part  in  a  struggle  threatening  the  very  existence  .of 
the  nation.  I  performed  a  conscientious  duty,  with 
out  asking  promotion  or  command,  and  without  a 
revengeful  feeling  toward  any  section  or  individual. 

"Notwithstanding  this,  throughout  the  war,  and 
from  my  candidacy  for  my  present  office  in  1868  to 
the  close  of  the  last  presidential  campaign,  I  have 
been  the  subject  of  abuse  and  slander  scarcely  ever 
equaled  in  political  history,  which  to-day  I  feel  that 
I  can  afford  to  disregard  in  view  of  your  verdict, 
which  I  gratefully  accept  as  my  vindication." 


CHAPTER  XL 

CRfiDIT  MOBILIER  —  THE   BACK   PAY  GRAB  —  THE 
SANBORN  CONTRACTS 

As  we  look  back  upon  Grant's  early  years  as  Presi 
dent,  we  see  that  he  was  criticized  more  for  the  man 
ner  than  the  matter  of  his  deeds.  The  result  in  1872 
showed  clearly  that  the  conservative  forces  of  the 
country  retained  their  faith  in  him.  While  Greeley 
had  great  crowds  to  hear  him  speak,  —  so  great  as 
for  a  time  to  frighten  old  Republican  campaigners, 
• —  the  outcome  demonstrated  that  they  were  drawn 
by  curiosity  to  see  and  hear  a  man  who  had  been 
writing  to  them  many  years.  The  "sober  second 
thought"  which  he  invoked  brought  voters  to  the 
polls  for  his  opponent.  He  was  himself  submerged 
in  the  great  "tidal  wave"  on  which  his  visionary 
helpers  set  such  store.  Grant  won  because,  however 
much  his  methods  might  be  questioned,  men  felt  that 
in  the  fundamental  qualities  then  needed  he  was 
sound.  He  had  sustained  the  country's  credit  in 
finance,  had  greatly  added  to  America's  prestige 
abroad,  and  had  shown  firmness  in  the  execution  of 
the  laws  both  North  and  South,  a  trait  which  led 
strong  men  of  all  political  complexions  to  believe  in 


428  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

him.  He  had  been  guilty  of  two  faults  which  fairly 
merited  reproof.  One  was  a  weakness  for  unworthy 
friends,  on  whom  he  showered  responsible  positions 
without  regard  to  their  experience  or  capacity  and 
who  too  often  played  on  his  good  faith  in  furthering 
their  aims;  the  other  was  the  practice,  which  he  car 
ried  to  a  greater  length  than  any  of  his  predecessors, 
of  interfering  with  congressional  affairs.  Of  these 
faults  the  first  was  personal  to  him  and  transitory;  the 
other,  in  the  hands  of  a  more  crafty  President,  might 
well  become  an  evil  packed  with  peril;  for  the  grow 
ing  ease  with  which  our  recent  Presidents  usurp  the 
functions  of  the  legislative  branch  threatens  the  very 
fundamentals  of  our  Government.  There  could  be  no 
handier  tool  for  one  who  had  designs  upon  our  liber 
ties  than  a  subservient  Congress.  With  Grant  the 
tendency  was  less  alarming  than  it  might  be  with 
others,  more  artful  in  the  ways  of  politics;  for  Grant 
was  not  a  demagogue;  he  never  dreamed  of  such  a 
thing  as  playing  with  his  office  for  popular  applause 
to  hold  himself  in  power.  He  acted  always  with 
a  definite  and  patriotic  aim,  though  often  erring 
through  his  unfamiliarity  with  the  machinery  of  civil 
government.  He  drove  straight  at  his  goal  without 
regard  to  legal  technicalities,  and  cut  across  lots  with 
sublime  indifference  to  signs  forbidding  trespass. 
:  While  he  was  gratefully  accepting  the  verdict 


CREDIT   MOBILIER  429 

of  the  country  on  his  first  Administration,  freshly 
gathered  clouds  were  hanging  over  him.  The  Con 
gress  just  then  coming  to  an  end  was  to  be  notable  in 
its  disclosure  of  two  scandals  —  the  Credit  Mobilier 
and  the  "Back  Pay  Steal/*  in  one  of  which  its  only 
office  was  to  mete  out  justice,  though  both  besmirched 
the  party  in  control,  in  spite  of  evidence  that  Demo 
crats  should  share  responsibility  for  whatever  guilt 
there  was.  Both  were  symbolic  of  the  temper  of  the 
hour,  and  symptomatic  of  conditions  by  no  means 
limited  to  Washington.  "My  own  public  life  has 
been  a  very  brief  and  insignificant  one,"  said  George 
F.  Hoar  about  that  time,  "extending  little  beyond 
the  duration  of  a  single  term  of  senatorial  office;  but 
in  that  brief  period  I  have  seen  five  judges  of  a  high 
court  of  the  United  States  driven  from  office  by 
threats  of  impeachment  for  corruption  or  maladmin 
istration.  I  have  heard  the  taunt,  from  friendliest 
lips,  that  when  the  United  States  presented  herself 
in  the  East  to  take  part  with  the  civilized  world  in 
generous  competition  in  the  arts  of  life,  the  only 
product  of  her  institutions  in  which  she  surpassed  all 
others  without  question  was  her  corruption.  I  have 
seen,  .  .  .  the  political  administration  of  her  chief 
city  become  a  disgrace  and  a  byword  throughout  the 
world.  .  .  .  When  the  greatest  railroad  of  the  world, 
binding  together  the  continent  and  uniting  the  two 


430  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

great  seas,  was  finished,  I  have  seen  our  national  tri 
umph  and  exultation  turned  to  bitterness  and  shame. 
...  I  have  heard  in  highest  places  the  shameless 
doctrine  avowed  by  men  grown  old  in  public  office 
that  the  true  way  by  which  power  should  be  gained 
in  the  Bepublic  is  to  bribe  the  people  with  offices 
created  for  their  service." 

Thus  marshaled,  it  presents  a  sorry  record;  but 
it  would  be  absurd  to  charge  it  up  to  Grant  or  his 
Administration.  The  period  just  following  the  war 
was  one  of  rude  upheaval  and  of  shattered  standards. 
It  cannot  fairly  be  compared  with  more  quiescent 
times.  It  was  Grant's  fortune  to  have  fallen  on  it. 
Another  in  his  place  would  hardly  have  done  bet 
ter;  a  weaker  President  might  have  been  over 
whelmed. 

And  in  spite  of  Hoar  it  would  be  hard  to  name  a 
country  with  equal  opportunities  where  corruption 
was  then  less  prevalent  than  in  our  own.  The  scan 
dals  of  the  day  emblazoned  by  political  assault  were 
uncouth  in  comparison  with  finer  faults  in  less  dis 
torted  times,  but  they  had  precedents  in  earlier  ad 
ministrations  and  have  been  rivaled  since.  With  all 
his  classic  phrase  and  fine  ideals  Hoar  often  was  the 
victim  of  his  own  hyperbole.  Like  Sumner  he  was  a 
dogmatic  partisan  even  in  a  noble  cause,  and  those 
who  knew  him  best  were  well  aware  that  in  his  eyes 


CREDIT   MOBILIER  431 

the  things  he  greatly  disapproved  were  monstrous, 
while  "all  his  geese  were  swans." 

In  the  midst  of  the  campaign  the  "New  York  Sun " 
had  sprung  a  charge  of  bribery  in  connection  with 
the  construction  of  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad,  for 
which  Oakes  Ames,  a  Congressman  from  Massachu 
setts,  a  forceful  and  far-seeing  business  man,  had 
been  responsible.  It  was  asserted  that  Ames  had 
distributed  among  influential  Congressmen  and  Sen 
ators  shares  of  stock  in  the  Credit  Mobilier.  This 
was  a  Pennsylvania  company,  the  unused  franchise 
of  which  had  been  acquired  by  the  managers  of  the 
Union  Pacific,  that  they  might  thus  secure  the  con 
tract  for  the  building  of  the  road.  The  device  which 
Ames  and  his  associates  adopted  was  an  ingenious 
adaptation  of  methods  then  prevailing  in  the  con 
struction  of  private  lines. 

It  was  not  feasible  at  that  time  to  secure  sub 
scriptions  to  the  authorized  capital  stock  in  cash  as 
was  required  by  the  statutes  and  as  might  have  been 
done  later.  If  Ames  had  not  come  forward  with  his 
credit,  the  enterprise  would  probably  have  fallen 
through;  and  the  "spanning  of  the  continent"  would 
have  been  delayed  for  years.  But  through  the  aid  of 
the  Credit  Mobilier,  the  stockholders  in  which  were 
almost  identical  with  the  stockholders  in  the  Union 
Pacific,  the  road  was  opened  in  1869.  Whatever  the 


432  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

benefits,  this  was  an  evasion  of  the  law  providing 
that  the  stock  should  be  paid  for  in  full  in  money, 
when  as  a  fact  it  went  to  men  "who  paid  for  it  at 
not  more  than  thirty  cents  on  the  dollar  in  road- 
making."  From  the  viewpoint  of  Ames  the  arrange 
ment  with  the  Credit  Mobilier  was  wise  and  neces 
sary  as  well  as  profitable,  for  otherwise  the  work 
could  not  have  been  done.  At  the  time  when  it  was 
undertaken  in  1865-66,  he  did  not  dare  ask  Con 
gress  to  amend  the  charter,  lest  in  the  crush  of  Re 
construction  legislation,  permission  would  be  indefi 
nitely  delayed. 

Ames  had  been  a  member  of  the  House  since  1863, 
and  from  that  vantage  had  watched  the  interests  of 
the  road.  Washburne,  of  Illinois,  "the  watch-dog  of 
the  Treasury,"  had  shown  intermittent  symptoms  of 
demanding  an  investigation  of  the  road's  affairs. 
Ames  wanted  nothing  further  in  the  way  of  legisla 
tion,  but  he  cannily  conceived  that  friendliness  among 
the  leading  men  in  Congress  might  be  a  handy  asset. 
At  his  suggestion,  in  the  fall  of  1867,  three  hundred 
and  forty-three  shares  of  the  Credit  Mobilier  were 
transferred  to  him  as  trustee.  "I  shall  put  these," 
he  wrote  to  an  associate,  "where  they  will  do  the 
most  good  to  us.  I  am  here  on  the  spot  and  can 
better  judge  where  they  should  go."  Whereupon  he 
entered  into  contracts  with  leading  Senators  and 


CREDIT   MOBILIER  433 

Representatives  to  sell  them  stock  at  par  with  inter 
est  from  the  first  day  of  the  previous  July.  One  hun 
dred  and  sixty  shares  were  thus  contracted  for.  Large 
dividends  were  already  due  upon  the  stock  and  it 
was  worth  no  less  than  double  par.  Some  bought  their 
shares  outright,  while  Ames  agreed  to  carry  others. 

This  was  the  ground  of  charges  exploited  in  the 
closing  days  of  the  campaign.  The  names  of  Senators 
and  Representatives  were  given,  based  on  a  list  made 
out  by  Ames  before  the  distribution  of  the  stock  and 
disclosed  that  summer  in  a  suit  before  a  Pennsylvania 
court.  They  were  a  score  of  the  most  influential  men 
in  Congress,  among  them  Colfax,  Conkling,  Garfield, 
Blaine,  and  Wilson.  When  Congress  met  a  few  weeks 
after  the  election,  Blaine,  then  Speaker,  took  the 
floor  and  asked  for  an  investigation.  Two  commit 
tees  were  appointed  —  one  headed  by  Luke  Poland, 
of  Vermont,  to  investigate  the  charges  against  mem 
bers  of  the  House,  the  other  headed  by  Wilson,  of 
Indiana,  and  George  F.  Hoar  to  inquire  into  the  man 
agement  of  the  affairs  of  the  Union  Pacific  and  the 
Credit  Mobilier.  The  result  was  a  complete  exonera 
tion  of  most  of  those  whom  Ames  had  on  his  list. 
Some,  like  Blaine,  Conkling,  and  Boutwell,  had  re 
fused  the  stock.  Others  had  given  it  back  when  they 
discovered  there  were  to  be  suspicious  profits.  Only 
those  who,  during  the  campaign  or  later,  had  pre- 


434  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

varicated  in  wholesale  denials,  though  guiltless  of 
corrupt  intent,  were  held  in  fault.  Colfax,  for  his 
prevarication  and  for  questionable  transactions  re 
vealed  in  the  inquiry,  was  driven  out  of  public  life. 
Patterson,  of  New  Hampshire,  was  recommended  by 
the  Senate  Committee  for  expulsion,  but  his  term 
came  to  an  end  before  the  Senate  was  prepared  to  act. 
Ames  and  James  Brooks,  a  New  York  Democratic 
member,  a  government  director  of  the  road  who  was 
implicated  with  him,  were  recommended  for  expul 
sion  from  the  House.  Brooks  died  before  his  case  was 
reached.  The  House  censured  Ames,  and  he  too  died 
within  a  month,  the  victim  of  a  broken  heart.  Until 
the  scandal  broke,  he  had  not  thought  of  the  trans 
action  as  anything  except  a  public  service  in  keeping 
with  the  habit  of  the  times,  for  which  he  should  be 
given  praise,  not  blame:  "The  same  thing,"  he  ex 
plained  to  the  committee,  "as  going  into  a  business 
community  and  interesting  the  leading  business  men 
by  giving  them  shares."  He  never  dreamed  of  cor 
rupting  members  of  Congress  in  any  way;  "they  were 
all  friends  of  the  road  and  my  friends.  If  you  want  to 
bribe  a  man  you  want  to  bribe  one  who  is  opposed  to 
you,  not  to  bribe  one  who  is  your  friend.  ...  I  never 
made  a  promise  to  or  got  one  from  any  member  of 
Congress  in  my  life,  and  I  would  not  dare  to  attempt 
it."  His  final  statement,  read  in  the  House  before  the 


THE   BACK   PAY   GRAB  435 

vote  of  censure,  merits  a  record  in  the  history  of  the 
time:  "I  have  risked  reputation,  fortune,  everything 
in  an  enterprise  of  incalculable  benefit  to  the  Govern 
ment  from  which  the  capital  of  the  world  shrank.  .  .  . 
I  have  had  friends,  some  of  them  in  official  life,  with 
whom  I  have  been  willing  to  share  advantageous 
opportunities  of  investment.  ...  I  have  kept  to  the 
truth  through  good  and  evil  report;  denying  nothing, 
concealing  nothing,  reserving  nothing.  Who  will  say 
that  I  alone  am  to  be  offered  up  a  sacrifice  to  appease 
a  public  clamor  or  expiate  the  sins  of  others?" 

The  revelations  and  the  disrepute  which  followed 
them  mark  the  beginning  of  a  change  in  public  con 
science,  which  thenceforth  was  alive  to  wrong  in 
methods  hitherto  unblamed.  They  had  no  rightful 
bearing  on  Grant's  Administration,  as  the  transac 
tions  were  all  before  his  time. 

The  Congress,  which  had  done  so  well  in  handling 
the  Credit  Mobilier  affair,  stirred  public  indignation 
in  its  dying  hours  by  the  enactment  of  the  "Salary 
Grab,"  providing  for  an  increase  in  salaries  of  Sen 
ators  and  Representatives  and  the  higher  officers  of 
the  Government.  The  salary  of  the  President  was 
raised  from  $25,000  to  $50,000  a  year,  that  of  Sen 
ators  and  Representatives  from  $5000  to  $7500. 
There  was  an  increase  in  the  pay  of  the  Vice-Presi 
dent,  of  the  members  of  the  Cabinet,  and  of  the  Jus- 


436  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

tices  of  the  Supreme  Court.  These  advances  could 
not  properly  be  criticized;  for  they  were  innocent  and 
necessary,  and  should  not  have  been  delayed  so  long; 
but  there  was  a  provision  that  the  increased  salaries 
of  Senators  and  Representatives  should  date  from 
the  beginning  of  the  present  Congress,  so  that  each 
would  be  entitled  to  receive  $5000  in  addition  to  what 
he  had  been  already  paid  —  a  retroactive  arrange 
ment  which  roused  the  people  to  a  fierce  storm  of 
protest.  It  was  depicted  as  a  conspiracy  to  loot  the 
Treasury,  and  those  who  voted  for  it  were  held  up 
to  public  scorn. 

Democrats  and  Republicans  had  joined  in  its  sup 
port;  one  party  was  as  guilty  as  the  other,  but  as  the 
Congress  was  Republican,  that  party  had  to  bear  the 
blame.  The  appropriation  bill  containing  the  obnox 
ious  clause  was  not  enacted  till  the  day  before  ad 
journment,  so  that  Grant  could  not  refuse  to  sign  the 
bill  without  compelling  a  special  session  of  the  newly 
chosen  Congress,  solely  to  make  the  necessary  appro 
priations  for  the  continuance  of  an  essential  govern 
mental  function.  He  afterwards  urged  Congress  to 
give  the  Executive  power  to  veto  portions  of  appro 
priation  bills  without  vetoing  the  whole  —  a  reform 
which  has  been  often  advocated  since  without  result. 

So  violent  was  the  outcry  against  the  "Back  Pay 
Steal"  that  many  Senators  and  Representatives 


THE    BACK   PAY   GRAB  437 

tiirned  back  into  the  Treasury  the  back  pay  which 
had  been  voted  them,  and  one  of  the  first  acts  of  the 
new  Congress  which  met  in  December,  1873,  was  to 
repeal  the  law  except  as  it  applied  to  the  President 
and  Justices  of  the  Supreme  Court.  The  issue  figured 
largely  in  the  next  congressional  election  and  was 
in  part  responsible  for  the  Republican  defeat.  Its 
shadow  lay  on  Congress  for  over  thirty  years,  and  not 
until  the  Roosevelt  Administration  did  any  member 
dare  propose  the  salary  increase  which  all  knew  to  be 
right,  resorting  rather  to  manipulation  of  their  pay 
by  petty  subterfuge  in  separate  allowances  for  mile 
age,  clerk  hire,  and  stationery,  in  timorous  deference 
to  a  public  feeling  which  did  not  exist. 

No  one  has  ever  told  why  Grant  as  President  took 
up  with  Butler,  whom  as  Lieutenant-General  he  had 
sent  home  from  City  Point  and  who,  in  "Butler's 
Book"  years  later,  smeared  Grant's  war  record  with 
a  filthy  brush.  It  may  have  been  because  of  his  dis 
like  for  Sumner,  whose  Massachusetts  friends  de 
tested  Butler's  ways,  or  it  may  have  been  his  inbred 
trait  of  standing  in  a  fight  by  any  one  who  seemed  to 
him  unfairly  handled;  but  under  all,  we  may  sur 
mise  Butler's  frank  brutality  of  method,  which  per 
haps  appealed  to  him  more  strongly  than  the  finer 
Brahmin  touch.  He  always  clung  to  those  with  whom 
he  felt  at  home.  The  Massachusetts  patronage  he 


438  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

gave  to  Butler  much  to  the  general  disgust.  His 
choice  of  Simmons,  "the  young  Christian  Soldier," 
a  Methodist  class  leader  and  Butler's  henchman,  for 
Collector  of  the  Port  of  Boston,  aroused  resentment 
in  the  State  and  stirred  to  protest  men  like  Sumner, 
Pierce,  Whittier,  and  Holmes,  all  bitterly  opposed  to 
Butler's  strong  ambition  to  be  Governor.  Six  New 
England  Senators  voted  against  Simmons,  only  one 
for  confirmation.  The  Hoar  brothers  tried  to  induce 
Grant  to  withdraw  the  nomination;  but  Grant  was 
obdurate. 

"Butler  says  he  has  a  hold  on  you,"  said  Judge 
Hoar,  as  he  sat  beside  the  President;  and  Rhodes,  to 
whom  this  story  came  direct,  relates  that  "Grant  set 
his  teeth,  then  drew  down  his  jaw,  and  without  chang 
ing  countenance  looked  Hoar  straight  in  the  eye,  but 
said  not  a  word.  A  long  and  painful  silence  ensued 
and  Hoar  went  away."  George  F.  Hoar  in  his  "Au 
tobiography"  tells  how  he  broached  the  Simmons 
topic  while  walking  with  the  President  by  Lafayette 
Square.  Grant  quietly  replied  that  to  withdraw  the 
nomination  would  do  injustice  to  the  young  man. 
The  conversation  continued  in  a  friendly  vein  until 
they  turned  the  corner  by  Sumner's  house,  when 
Grant's  whole  manner  changed,  and  shaking  his 
closed  fist  he  said,  "I  shall  not  withdraw  the  nomina 
tion.  That  man  who  lives  up  there  has  abused  me  in 


CJKAXT    IX    HIS   SECOND   TERM 
Photograph  by  Brady 

Fro,,,  th<  <•<,!!, -,-ti,,,,  ,>/  Fwlrnck  Hill  Mesen-t 


THE  SANBORN  CONTRACTS      439 

a  way  which  I  have  never  suffered  from  any  other 
man  living!"  This  was  in  the  winter  of  1873,  only  a 
few  weeks  before  Sumner's  sudden  end. 

The  scandal  of  the  Sanborn  contracts  grew  out  of 
Butler's  influence  with  the  Administration.  William 
A.  Richardson,  who  had  been  Assistant  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury  under  Boutwell  and  who  succeeded 
Boutwell  when  the  latter  became  a  Senator,  came 
from  Lowell,  Butler's  town.  Richardson  had  no  ad 
ministrative  service  save  in  the  Washington  depart 
ments.  It  was  of  him  that  George  F.  Hoar  remarked, 
when  asked  about  his  Massachusetts  record,  "his 
reputation  is  strictly  national."  In  1872  Congress 
had  repealed  the  dangerous  law  by  which  informers 
received  a  moiety  of  the  recoveries  from  delinquent 
payers  of  internal  revenue  taxes,  but  a  clause  had 
been  smuggled  into  an  appropriation  bill  empowering 
the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  "to  employ  not  more 
than  three  persons  to  assist  the  proper  officers  of  the 
Government  in  discovering  and  collecting  any  money 
belonging  to  the  United  States  whenever  the  same 
shall  be  withheld."  Under  this  clause,  Richardson, 
first  as  Assistant  Secretary,  afterwards  as  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury,  made  contracts  with  John  D.  Sanborn, 
a  Boston  friend  of  Butler's,  already  in  the  Govern 
ment's  employ  as  special  agent  for  the  Treasury,  to 
collect  taxes  which  were  said  to  have  been  evaded  by 


440  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

distillers,  railroad  companies,  legatees,  and  others, 
By  successive  amendments  to  his  contract,  Sanborn 
induced  the  Treasury  officials  to  let  him  gather  in  his 
net  several  thousand  individuals  and  almost  every 
railroad  company  in  the  United  States,  and  to  wink 
at  fraudulent  swearing  to  delinquencies. 

Under  this  contract  $427,000  was  collected,  from 
which  Sanborn  received  his  moiety  of  $213,500.  Of 
his  share  Sanborn  testified  that  $156,000  was  spent 
in  hiring  men  to  help  him  carry  on  the  work,  and 
most  of  this,  it  has  been  intimated,  went  to  those  who 
were  engaged  in  the  advancement  of  Butler's  polit 
ical  designs.  A  congressional  committee  in  1874  found 
that  a  large  percentage  of  the  revenue  collected  was 
not  a  proper  subject  for  contract  under  the  law  and 
would  have  been  collected  by  the  Internal  Revenue 
Bureau  in  ordinary  course;  that  many  of  the  trans 
actions  were  fraudulent,  and  that  the  Commissioner 
of  Internal  Revenue  had  been  studiously  ignored 
throughout.  They  agreed  unanimously  to  report  a 
resolution  that  the  House  had  no  confidence  in  Rich 
ardson  and  demanded  his  removal. 

When  Grant  got  word  of  this  he  sent  for  individual 
members  of  the  committee  and  urged  them  to  with 
hold  the  resolution,  with  the  understanding  that  the 
Secretary  should  resign  and  be  taken  care  of  in  some 
other  branch  of  service.  As  no  one  intimated  that 


THE   SANBORN   CONTRACTS  441 

Richardson  had  profited  by  the  arrangement  and 
the  real  complaint  against  him  was  for  negligence, 
the  committee  accepted  Grant's  proposal.  Richard 
son  was  made  a  justice  of  the  Court  of  Claims,  and 
Benjamin  H.  Bristow,  a  Kentucky  lawyer  who  had 
made  a  record  for  effectiveness  as  United  States  At 
torney,  was  appointed  Secretary  in  his  place. 


CHAPTER  XLI 

VETO  OF  THE  INFLATION  BILL  — THE  RESUMPTION 
ACT 

FOR  more  than  two  years  after  the  Supreme  Court's 
reversal  of  its  Legal  Tender  decision  there  was  a 
period  of  seemingly  unexampled  prosperity.  Busi 
ness  boomed;  new  railroads  shot  out  through  the 
Western  country  to  gather  up  the  grain  for  which 
Europe  waited  with  outstretched  hands;  others 
pierced  the  coal  and  iron  regions  of  Pennsylvania  and 
the  border  States.  In  the  four  years  from  1869  to 
1872  the  railroad  mileage  of  the  United  States  in 
creased  over  twenty-four  thousand  miles  —  more 
than  three  times  the  average  annual  increase  during 
the  years  from  1865  to  1868.  All  this  meant  a  tremen 
dous  demand  for  iron  and  steel,  a  great  expansion  of 
shipping  on  the  Great  Lakes.  Workshops  and  mills 
were  run  at  full  capacity;  labor  was  in  demand;  wages 
were  high;  the  tide  of  immigration  was  at  flood.  New 
issues  of  railway  bonds  were  frequent,  at  high  rates  of 
interest;  and  they  were  widely  distributed  among 
people  like  clergymen,  school  teachers,  and  others  of 
meager  pay,  who  eagerly  welcomed  the  unusual  re 
turns  upon  their  small  investments. 


VETO   OF   THE   INFLATION   BILL        443 

Many  of  these  railway  bonds,  notably  those  of  the 
Northern  Pacific,  were  floated  by  Jay  Cooke  &  Co., 
who,  ever  since  their  great  success  in  handling  the 
Government  bond  issues  of  the  Civil  War,  had  stood 
in  the  popular  imagination  as  the  house  of  Morgan 
later  stood  for  so  many  years,  the  representative 
banking  institution  of  the  United  States.  Besides  the 
legitimate  business  advancement,  there  were  thou 
sands  of  wildcat  schemes. 

Every  one  was  busy  about  something;  every  one 
had  money;  the  world  was  looking  up;  the  Vanderbilts 
and  other  men,  who  for  years  had  been  doing  the 
biggest  things  in  the  biggest  way,  were  carrying  on 
their  constructive  schemes  with  sublime  confidence 
in  the  future.  They  saw  no  clouds  ahead;  why  should 
the  average  citizen  who  had  faith  in  their  experience? 
Then  in  the  late  summer  of  1873,  a  few  months  after 
Grant  had  entered  on  his  second  term,  money  began 
to  tighten  even  more  than  usual  for  that  season  of  the 
year,  when  it  was  needed  for  the  movement  of  the 
crops.  There  were  other  indications  which  might 
well  have  been  taken  as  warnings  that  the  boom  had 
gone  too  far.  And  finally  on  September  18,  1873,  the 
country  was  stunned  by  the  announcement  that  Jay 
Cooke  &  Co.  had  failed. 

The  props  were  knocked  from  under  the  flimsy 
structure  of  prosperity  and  it  crumbled  overnight. 


444  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Bank  after  bank  went  to  the  wall  in  all  parts  of  the 
United  States.  The  stock  exchanges  remained  closed 
for  eight  days;  greenbacks  and  national  bank  notes 
were  hoarded;  clearing-house  certificates  were  issued 
for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  panics;  every  con 
ceivable  device  was  resorted  to  for  luring  money  back 
into  circulation.  The  country  was  stricken  with  in 
dustrial  paralysis.  Grant  did  not  see  "good  times" 
again  while  he  was  President. 

At  the  height  of  the  panic  the  frightened  financiers 
of  New  York  cried  to  Washington  for  help.  Three 
days  after  the  failure  of  Jay  Cooke  &  Co.,  Grant  came 
over  to  New  York  with  Richardson,  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury,  and  was  besieged  at  the  Fifth  Avenue 
Hotel  by  the  business  leaders  of  the  city.  "I  hap 
pened  in  New  York  on  that  Sunday,"  said  Morton, 
of  Indiana,  "and  saw  the  crowds  of  bankers,  brokers, 
capitalists,  merchants,  manufacturers,  and  railroad 
men,  who  throughout  that  day  thronged  the  halls, 
corridors,  and  parlors  of  the  Fifth  Avenue  Hotel,  be 
seeching  the  President  to  increase  the  currency  by 
every  means  in  his  power,  and  declaring  that  unless 
the  Government  came  to  the  rescue  nothing  could 
save  the  country  from  bankruptcy  and  ruin." 

Two  measures  of  relief  were  at  Grant's  hand. 
Before  McCulloch  was  stopped  by  Congress  he  had 
retired  and  canceled  $44,000,000  out  of  $400,000,000 


VETO   OF   THE   INFLATION   BILL         445 

greenbacks  authorized  by  law,  leaving  in  circulation 
$356,000,000.  Boutwell  at  times  had  reissued  these 
notes  in  small  amounts  to  meet  the  current  expenses 
of  the  Government  and  had  retired  them  again  as  the 
need  passed.  Grant  now  had  it  in  his  power  to  reissue 
these  notes  in  the  financial  emergency.  Some  of  the 
biggest  men  in  the  Street  begged  him  to  do  it. 

But  he  refused  thus  to  inflate  the  currency  in  order 
to  ease  the  money  market.  At  best  it  would  have 
been  a  temporary  and  fictitious  relief  and  probably 
illegal,  though  that  irregularity  would  doubtless  have 
been  overlooked  in  so  great  a  crisis.  There  were  other 
surplus  greenbacks  in  the  Treasury,  however,  and  he 
directed  the  Secretary  to  use  these  to  buy  bonds,  thus 
restoring  to  the  savings  banks  $13,000,000  of  cur 
rency,  which,  while  it  did  not  go  directly  into  circula 
tion  for  the  benefit  of  Wall  Street,  was  far-reaching 
in  its  moral  effect. 

Congress  meeting  in  December,  1873,  found  the 
country  in  financial  depths  looking  to  Washington 
for  relief.  There  were  few  Senators  or  Representa 
tives  without  a  remedy,  fresh  from  home.  The  cry 
for  inflation,  which  had  been  blatant  many  years, 
now  gained  in  volume. 

Grant  called  attention  in  his  message  to  the  falling- 
off  of  revenues  "  owing  to  the  general  panic  now  pre 
vailing."  It  was  the  duty  of  Congress  to  provide 


446  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

"wise  and  well-considered  legislation."  "My  own 
judgment  is  that  however  much  individuals  may  have 
suffered,  one  long  step  has  been  taken  toward  specie 
payments,  and  we  can  never  have  permanent  pros 
perity  until  a  specie  basis  can  be  reached  and  main 
tained,  until  our  exports,  exclusive  of  gold,  pay  for 
our  imports,  interest  due  abroad,  and  other  specie 
obligations,  or  so  nearly  so  as  to  leave  an  appreciable 
accumulation  of  the  precious  metals  in  the  country 
from  the  products  of  our  mines.  ...  To  increase  our 
exports  sufficient  currency  is  required  to  keep  all  the 
industries  of  the  country  employed.  Without  this, 
national  as  well  as  individual  bankruptcy  must  ensue. 
Undue  inflation,  on  the  other  hand,  while  it  might 
give  temporary  relief,  would  only  lead  to  inflation  of 
prices,  the  impossibility  of  competing  in  our  own 
markets  for  the  products  of  home  skill  and  labor,  and 
repeated  renewals  of  present  experiences.  Elasticity 
to  our  circulating  medium,  therefore,  and  just  enough 
of  it  to  transact  the  legitimate  business  of  the  country 
and  to  keep  all  industries  employed,  is  what  is  most 
to  be  desired.  The  exact  medium  is  specie,  the  recog 
nized  medium  of  exchange  the  world  over.  That  ob 
tained,  we  shall  have  a  currency  of  an  exact  degree  of 
elasticity.  If  there  be  too  much  of  it  for  the  legiti 
mate  purposes  of  trade  and  commerce,  it  will  flow 
out  of  the  country.  If  too  little,  the  reverse  will  result. 


VETO   OF   THE   INFLATION   BILL        447 

To  hold  what  we  have  and  to  appreciate  our  currency 
to  that  standard  is  the  problem  deserving  of  the  most 
serious  consideration  of  Congress." 

John  Sherman  was  chairman  of  the  Finance  Com 
mittee  of  the  Senate;  and  under  his  sound  guidance 
early  in  December  the  majority  of  the  committee 
reported  a  resolution  looking  to  the  resumption  of 
specie  payments.  Ferry,  of  Michigan,  offered  a  reso 
lution  looking  to  inflation.  Morton  and  Logan  were 
eager  advocates  of  cheaper  money.  Thurman  called 
these  three  "the  paper  money  trinity."  Their  de 
mands  ranged  from  the  issue  of  $100,000,000  in 
greenbacks,  which  Ferry  had  in  mind,  to  the  reissue 
of  the  entire  amount  retired  by  McCulloch,  which 
was  Morton's  plan.  This  latter  would  have  brought 
the  amount  outstanding  to  $400,000,000,  but  it  would 
have  necessitated  the  actual  issue  of  only  $18,000,000; 
for  without  justification  in  law,  Richardson  had  been 
busy  ever  since  the  panic  in  inflation  on  his  own 
account  to  make  up  for  falling  revenues,  and  to 
provide  for  current  disbursements.  McCulloch  had 
retired  $44,000,000,  and  at  the  time  of  the  Septem 
ber  panic  in  1873  the  total  amount  of  greenbacks 
outstanding  was  $356,000,000.  Richardson  at  con 
venient  intervals  since  that  time  had  put  out,  by 
the  middle  of  January,  1874,  a  total  of  $26,000,000 
for  the  payment  of  current  expenses. 


448  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

There  was  a  decided  difference  of  opinion  about  the 
legality  of  Richardson's  performance,  but  the  imme 
diate  question  before  Congress  was  whether  to  au 
thorize  the  issue  of  $18,000,000  more,  while  silently 
assenting  to  what  he  had  done.  It  was  a  question 
of  principle  rather  than  of  amount.  "If  now,"  said 
Sherman,  "in  this  time  of  temporary  panic,  we  yield 
one  single  inch  to  the  desire  for  paper  money  in  this 
country,  we  shall  pass  the  Rubicon,  and  there  will  be 
no  power  in  Congress  to  check  the  issue.  If  you  want 
$40,000,000  now,  how  easy  will  it  be  to  get  $40,000,- 
000  again!  .  .  .  Will  there  not  always  be  men  in  debt? 
Will  not  always  men  with  bright  hopes  embark  too 
far  on  the  treacherous  sea  of  credit?  Will  there  not 
always  be  a  demand  made  upon  you  for  an  increase?  " 

The  debate  covering  a  wide  range  lasted  for  four 
months.  Sherman's  committee  reported  a  bill  fixing 
the  maximum  amount  of  greenbacks  at  $382,000,000, 
where  Richardson  had  left  it.  This  was  amended  to 
provide  for  a  maximum  of  $400,000,000,  thus  legaliz 
ing  Richardson's  issue  and  authorizing  $18,000,000 
more.  In  this  form  it  passed  the  Senate  and  House 
by  ample  margins  and  on  April  4,  1874,  went  to  the 
President. 

Now  comes  one  of  the  most  dramatic  and  credit 
able  incidents  in  Grant's  career.  With  the  passage  of 
the  inflation  bill  the  country  settled  down  to  the 


VETO   OF  THE   INFLATION   BILL        449 

expectation  that  it  would  become  a  law.  There  was 
reason  for  this  belief.  While  Grant's  public  and  pri 
vate  utterances  hitherto  had  been  consistently  on  the 
side  of  financial  stability,  there  were  passages  both 
in  his  private  and  public  papers  not  inconsistent  with 
a  moderate  expansion  of  the  circulating  medium,  and 
he  had  tacitly  assented  to  the  irregularities  of  Bout- 
well  and  Richardson  even  though  he  may  not  have 
approved  them  in  advance.  Morton  and  Logan  were 
his  stanch  political  supporters.  They  had  sustained 
him  when  he  had  been  most  bitterly  assailed.  But 
here  was  an  occasion  where  he  fully  realized  the 
responsibility  of  his  position  of  command. 

It  would  have  been  easy  to  say  nothing  and  sign 
the  bill;  still  easier  to  let  the  bill  become  a  law  with 
out  his  signature.  In  either  case  he  would  have  little 
criticism.  Whatever  blame  there  was  would  fall  on 
Congress. 

Grant  never  thought  of  shirking  the  responsibility. 
He  first  expected  to  approve  the  bill  and  actually 
wrote  a  message  telling  why:  but  when  he  came  to 
read  his  own  production,  he  could  not  honestly  en 
dorse  the  arguments.  He  tore  up  his  first  message, 
wrote  another,  and  on  the  22d  of  April  astonished  the 
country  with  a  veto. 

"The  only  time  I  ever  deliberately  resolved  to  do 
an  expedient  thing  for  party  reasons,  against  my  own 


450  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

judgment,"  he  later  said,  "was  on  the  occasion  of 
the  expansion  or  inflation  bill.  I  never  was  so  pressed 
in  my  life  to  do  anything  as  to  sign  that  bill  —  never. 
It  was  represented  to  me  that  the  veto  would  destroy 
the  Republican  Party  in  the  West;  that  the  West  and 
South  would  combine  and  take  the  country,  and 
agree  upon  some  even  worse  plan  of  finance,  some 
plan  that  would  mean  repudiation.  Morton,  Logan, 
and  other  men,  friends  whom  I  respected,  were  elo 
quent  in  presenting  this  view.  I  thought  at  last  I 
would  try  and  save  the  party,  and  at  the  same  time 
the  credit  of  the  nation,  from  the  evils  of  the  bill.  I 
resolved  to  write  a  message,  embodying  my  own  rea 
soning  and  some  of  the  arguments  that  had  been 
given  me,  to  show  that  the  bill,  as  passed,  need  not 
mean  expansion  or  inflation  and  that  it  need  not 
affect  the  country's  credit.  The  message  was  intended 
to  soothe  the  East  and  satisfy  the  foreign  holders  of 
the  bonds.  I  wrote  the  message  with  great  care  and 
put  in  every  argument  I  could  call  up  to  show  that 
the  bill  was  harmless  and  would  not  accomplish  what 
its  friends  expected  from  it.  When  I  finished  my 
wonderful  message  which  was  to  do  so  much  good  to 
the  party  and  country,  I  read  it  over  and  said  to  my 
self :  'What  is  the  good  of  all  this?  You  do  not  believe 
it.  You  know  it  is  not  true.'  Throwing  it  aside  I  re 
solved  to  do  what  I  believed  to  be  right,  veto  the 


VETO   OF   THE   INFLATION   BILL        451 

bill!  I  could  not  stand  my  own  arguments.  While  I 
was  in  this  mood  —  and  it  was  an  anxious  time  with 
me,  so  anxious  that  I  could  not  sleep  at  night,  with 
me  a  most  unusual  circumstance  —  the  ten  days  were 
passing  in  which  the  President  must  sign  or  veto  a 
bill.  On  the  ninth  day  I  resolved  inflexibly  to  veto 
the  bill  and  let  the  storm  come."1 

Grant  wrote  his  veto  with  his  own  hand,  as  was 
generally  the  case  with  his  important  messages.  It 
was  a  sturdy  and  inspiring  paper.  He  declared  his 
unalterable  opposition  to  any  inflation  of  the  currency 
as  "a  departure  from  true  principles  of  finance,  na 
tional  interest,  national  obligations  to  creditors,  con 
gressional  promises,  party  pledges  (on  the  part  of 
both  political  parties),  and  of  personal  views  and 
promises  made  by  me  in 'every  annual  message  sent 
to  Congress  and  in  each  inaugural  address."  It  was 
the  turning-point  in  the  financial  policy  of  the 
United  States.  If  Grant  had  done  no  other  praise 
worthy  thing  in  his  eight  years  of  office,  this  in  itself 
would  have  given  him  rank  among  our  great  execu 
tives.  It  fixed  the  place  of  the  United  States  among 
the  financial  powers  of  the  world. 

But  something  still  remained  for  him  to  do;  for 
though  inflation  had  been  dealt  a  deadly  blow,  addi 
tional  legislation  was  required  to  bring  about  a  cur- 
1  Young,  vol.  n,  p.  153. 


452  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

rency  based  unmistakably  upon  the  monetary  stand 
ards  of  the  world.  In  1874  the  country  was  ready 
for  a  party  change.  Hard  times,  the  record  made  by 
Congress,  Credit  Mobilier,  the  "Back  Pay  Grab," 
and  scandals  like  the  Sanborn  contracts,  had  cul 
minated  in  a  storm  of  disapproval  which  broke  in 
the  election  of  a  Democratic  House.  The  two-thirds 
Republican  majority  of  the  Forty-fourth  Congress 
was  almost  reversed,  and  for  the  first  time  since  1861, 
Senate  and  House  would  be  of  differing  political 
complexion.  Whatever  legislation  looking  to  the  re 
sumption  of  specie  payments  the  Administration 
had  in  mind  must  be  enacted  while  a  Congress  in 
sympathy  with  this  policy  was  still  in  power;  for 
sound  finance  had  no  place  in  the  Democratic  creed. 
When  Congress  met  in  December,  1874,  for  its 
last  short  session,  Grant  in  his  message  brought  re 
sumption  boldly  to  the  front,  pressing  his  argument 
with  earnestness  and  with  convincing  force.  He  dwelt 
upon  the  national  need  which  had  devised  a  cur 
rency  impossible  to  keep  at  par  with  the  recognized 
currency  of  the  civilized  world,  urged  that  a  foreign 
indebtedness,  contracted  in  good  faith  by  borrower 
and  lender,  should  be  paid  in  coin,  and  according  to 
the  bond  agreed  upon  when  the  debt  was  contracted 
—  gold  or  its  equivalent.  "The  good  faith  of  the 
Government  cannot  be  violated  toward  creditors 


THE   RESUMPTION   ACT  453 

without  national  disgrace."  In  his  judgment  the 
first  step  toward  the  encouragement  of  American 
commerce  was  "to  secure  a  currency  of  fixed,  stable 
value;  a  currency  good  wherever  civilization  reigns; 
one  which,  if  it  becomes  superabundant  with  one 
people,  will  find  a  market  with  some  other;  a  cur 
rency  which  has  as  its  basis  the  labor  necessary  to 
produce  it,  which  will  give  to  it  its  value.  Gold  and 
silver  are  now  the  recognized  medium  of  exchange 
the  civilized  world  over,  and  to  this  we  should  return 
with  the  least  practicable  delay.  ...  I  believe  firmly 
that  there  can  be  no  prosperous  and  permanent  re 
vival  of  business  and  industries  until  a  policy  is 
adopted  —  with  legislation  to  carry  it  out  —  looking 
to  a  return  to  a  specie  basis.  ...  I  believe  it  is  in  the 
power  of  Congress  at  this  session  to  devise  such  legis 
lation  as  will  renew  confidence,  revive  all  the  indus 
tries,  start  us  on  a  career  of  prosperity  to  last  for 
many  years,  and  to  save  the  credit  of  the  nation  and 
the  people." 

He  suggested  measures  which  seemed  to  him  abso 
lutely  necessary  to  a  return  to  specie  payments.  "The 
Legal  Tender  clause  to  the  law  authorizing  the  issue 
of  currency  by  the  National  Government  should  be 
repealed,  to  take  effect  as  to  all  contracts  entered 
into  after  a  day  fixed  in  the  repealing  act.  .  .  .  Pro 
vision  should  be  made  by  which  the  Secretary  of  the 


454  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

Treasury  can  obtain  gold  as  it  may  become  necessary 
from  time  to  time,  from  the  date  when  specie  resump 
tion  commences.  To  this  should  be  added  a  revenue 
sufficiently  in  excess  of  expenses  to  insure  an  accumu 
lation  of  gold  in  the  Treasury  to  sustain  permanent 
redemption.  .  . .  With  resumption,  free  banking  may 
be  authorized  with  safety,  giving  the  same  full  pro 
tection  to  bill-holders  which  they  have  under  existing 
laws.  Indeed,  I  regard  free  banking  as  essential.  It 
would  give  proper  elasticity  to  the  currency."  And 
pressing  home  his  plea  he  urged:  "I  commend  this 
subject  to  your  careful  consideration,  believing  that 
a  favorable  solution  is  attainable,  and  if  reached  by 
this  Congress  that  the  present  and  future  generations 
will  ever  gratefully  remember  it  as  their  deliverer 
from  a  thralldom  of  evil  and  disgrace." 

Congress  was  quick  in  its  response.  John  Sherman, 
chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Finance  at  the  first 
party  caucus,  moved  a  committee  to  harmonize  the 
various  diverging  views  of  the  majority  and  formu 
late  a  bill.  He  was  made  chairman.  By  mutual  con 
cessions  a  bill  was  shaped,  the  vital  section  of  which 
provided  that  on  January  1,  1879,  the  Government 
should  begin  the  redemption  of  greenbacks  in  coin; 
and,  to  make  possible  this  resumption  of  specie  pay 
ments,  authorized  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  to 
use  the  surplus  revenue  and  to  sell  bonds  for  the 


THE   RESUMPTION   ACT  455 

purpose  of  accumulating  gold.  The  bill  also  pro 
vided  for  free  banking,  for  the  withdrawal  of  green 
backs  as  fast  as  national  bank  notes  were  issued  in 
the  proportion  of  $80  to  $100  until  the  greenbacks 
were  reduced  to  $300,000,000;  for  subsidiary  silver 
coins  to  take  the  place  of  the  paper  fractional  cur 
rency. 

The  bill  promptly  passed  both  Senate  and  House, 
and  on  January  14,  1875,  Grant  made  it  law,  sig 
nalizing  his  approval  in  a  message  congratulating 
Congress,  urging  further  steps  to  make  the  law  effec 
tive  through  the  increase  of  revenue,  and  suggesting 
other  helpful  legislation.  It  fell  to  Sherman  as  Secre 
tary  of  the  Treasury  under  Hayes  to  carry  out  the 
law  with  whose  enactment  he  had  so  much  to  do, 
and  thus  complete  a  chapter  in  finance  of  which  all 
good  Americans  may  rightfully  be  proud. 


CHAPTER  XLII 
A  SOLID  SOUTH  IN  THE  MAKING 

ONE  cannot  review  the  story  of  the  South  during 
these  years  without  a  feeling  of  deep  melancholy.  We 
have  seen  how  in  the  flood  of  negro  suffrage  the 
States  of  the  Black  Belt  had  been  misgoverned,  and 
we  have  had  a  dark  recital  of  the  extravagance,  dis 
honesty,  and  ignorance  which  laid  a  heavy  hand  upon 
a  proud  though  conquered  people.  There  are  few  in 
stances  in  history  of  such  complete  misapprehension 
of  a  human  problem  by  those  entrusted  with  its  set 
tlement.  The  North,  befooled  by  myths  about  the 
negro,  failed  utterly  to  comprehend  the  mental  atti 
tude  of  those  who  after  exercising  feudal  power  found 
themselves  suddenly  subordinate  to  former  slaves,  a 
race  still  looked  upon  by  them  as  of  a  hopelessly  in 
ferior  type.  The  hurried  grant  of  universal  suffrage 
was  an  offense  for  which  both  North  and  South  have 
paid  a  grievous  penalty.  In  throwing  off  a  hateful 
burden,  the  people  of  the  South,  as  if  pursuant  to  a 
law  of  nature,  have  let  all  other  problems  wait  upon 
the  vital  problem  of  local  government.  It  would  be 
hard  to  overestimate  the  injury  done  the  nation  as  a 
whole  by  the  existence  of  the  "  Solid  South,"  where 


A   SOLID   SOUTH   IN   THE   MAKING      457 

there  is  found  the  finest  essence  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
race,  yet  where  there  is  no  adequate  debate  of  timely 
themes  because  the  negro  question  overshadows  all. 
That  it  may  now  be  a  fantastic  fear  is  quite  beside 
the  point.  The  dread  of  negro  domination  has  become 
ingrained  through  memory  of  actual  experience  in 
Reconstruction  times.  The  South  itself  must  bear 
the  cruel  load  of  its  solidity;  but  the  North,  which 
furnished  the  excuse  unwittingly,  must  share  the 
expiation  because  it  shares  the  blame. 

The  part  Grant  had  to  play  in  his  endeavor  to  do 
justice  in  the  South  is  one  he  neither  relished  nor  de 
served.  He  did  not  favor  negro  suffrage  at  the  start, 
and  acquiesced  in  it  as  a  necessity  only  when  through 
others'  folly  it  seemed  unavoidable.  But  when  cor 
ruption  and  malfeasance  led  to  bloodshed  his  soldier's 
instinct  led  him  to  enforce  the  law.  His  use  of  federal 
troops,  subject  to  hot  denunciation  at  the  time,  has 
been  thrown  up  against  him  ever  since;  as  if  it  were 
the  cause  of  violence  and  not  intended  as  the  cure. 
The  opposition  charged  that  he  essayed  to  play  the 
role  of  Caesar,  that  he  aimed  to  keep  himself  in  office 
by  military  force,  till  men  forgot  that  all  the  federal 
soldiers  in  the  South  could  hardly  have  policed  a 
single  town.  It  took  four  years  of  fighting  and  two 
million  men  to  put  down  insurrection  in  a  territory 
which  he  was  charged  with  trying  to  enslave  with 


458  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

four  thousand  soldiers  scattered  through  a  dozen 
States.  That  was  the  highest  number  in  the  South 
under  arms  at  any  single  time,  embracing  the  garri 
sons  of  all  the  forts  between  the  Delaware  and  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico.1  It  would  have  been  a  great  thing 
for  the  South,  in  Grant's  opinion,  if  some  of  the 
streams  of  emigration  from  New  England  and  the 
Middle  States  had  been  diverted  in  that  direction 
instead  of  toward  Iowa  and  Kansas.  In  the  light  of 
history  and  his  own  experience  we  must  examine  with 
respect  Grant's  matured  views  upon  the  problem 
which  pressed  upon  him  heavily  so  long:  — 

"Looking  back  over  the  whole  policy  of  Recon 
struction,  it  seems  to  me  that  the  wisest  thing  would 
have  been  to  have  continued  for  some  time  the  mili 
tary  rule.  Sensible  Southern  men  see  now  that  there 
was  no  government  so  frugal,  so  just,  and  fair  as  what 
they  had  under  our  generals.  That  would  have  en 
abled  the  Southern  people  to  pull  themselves  together 
and  repair  material  losses.  .  .  .  Military  rule  would 
have  been  just  to  all,  to  the  negro  who  wanted  free 
dom,  the  white  man  who  wanted  protection,  the 
Northern  man  who  wanted  Union.  As  State  after 

1  The  whole  number  of  troops  in  the  States  of  Louisiana,  Ala 
bama,  Georgia,  Florida,  South  Carolina,  North  Carolina,  Ken 
tucky,  Tennessee,  Arkansas,  Mississippi,  Maryland,  and  Virginia 
at  the  time  of  the  election  was  4082.  This  embraces  the  garrisons 
of  all  the  forts  from  the  Delaware  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico!  (Rich 
ardson,  Messages  and  Papers,  vol.  vn,  p.  298.) 


A   SOLID   SOUTH   IN   THE   MAKING      459 

State  showed  willingness  to  come  into  the  Union,  not 
on  their  own  terms,  but  upon  ours,  I  would  have 
admitted  them.  This  would  have  made  universal 
suffrage  unnecessary,  and  I  think  a  mistake  was 
made  about  suffrage.  It  was  unjust  to  the  negro  to 
throw  upon  him  the  responsibilities  of  citizenship, 
and  expect  him  to  be  on  even  terms  with  his  white 
neighbor.  It  was  unjust  to  the  North. 

"  In  giving  the  South  negro  suffrage,  we  have  given 
the  old  slaveholders  forty  votes  in  the  Electoral  Col 
lege.  They  keep  those  votes,  but  disfranchise  the 
negroes.  That  is  one  of  the  gravest  mistakes  in  the 
policy  of  Reconstruction.  ...  I  am  clear  now  that 
it  would  have  been  better  for  the  North  to  have 
postponed  suffrage,  Reconstruction,  State  Govern 
ments,  for  ten  years,  and  held  the  South  in  a  ter 
ritorial  condition.  ...  It  would  have  avoided  the 
scandals  of  the  State  Governments,  saved  money, 
and  enabled  the  Northern  merchants,  farmers,  and 
laboring  men  to  reorganize  society  in  the  South.  But 
we  made  our  scheme,  and  must  do  what  we  can  with 
it.  Suffrage  once  given  can  never  be  taken  away  and 
all  that  remains  for  us  now  is  to  make  good  that  gift 
by  protecting  those  who  have  received  it."  1 

Such  elections  as  were  held  in  1873  disclosed  a 
Democratic  trend,  due  partly  to  the  panic,  partly  to 
1  Young,  p.  362. 


460  ULYSSES  S.  GRANT 

other  things,  and  as  election  day  approached  in  1874, 
the  Democratic  trend  throughout  the  North  became 
intensified.  In  sympathy  with  the  general  tendency 
there  was  a  recurrence  in  several  Southern  States 
of  anti-negro  demonstrations,  which  Grant  described 
in  his  December  message.1 

In  Alabama,  "men  of  intelligence  and  property" 

1  "  I  regret  to  say  that  with  preparations  for  the  late  election 
decided  indications  appeared  in  some  localities  in  the  Southern 
States  of  a  determination,  by  acts  of  violence  and  intimidation,  to 
deprive  citizens  of  the  freedom  of  the  ballot  because  of  their  polit 
ical  opinions.  Bands  of  men,  masked  and  armed,  made  their  ap 
pearance;  White  Leagues  and  other  societies  were  formed;  large 
quantities  of  arms  and  ammunition  were  imported  and  distributed 
to  these  organizations;  military  drills,  with  menacing  demonstra 
tions,  were  held,  and  with  all  these  murders  enough  were  commit 
ted  to  spread  terror  among  those  whose  political  action  was  to  be 
suppressed,  if  possible,  by  these  intolerant  and  criminal  proceed 
ings.  I  understand  that  the  Fifteenth  Amendment  to  the  Consti 
tution  was  made  to  prevent  this  and  a  like  state  of  things,  and  the 
Act  of  May  31,  1870,  with  amendments,  was  passed  to  enforce  its 
provisions,  the  object  of  both  being  to  guarantee  to  all  citizens 
the  right  to  vote  and  to  protect  them  in  the  free  enjoyment  of 
that  right.  Enjoined  by  the  Constitution  '  to  take  care  that  the 
laws  be  faithfully  executed,'  and  convinced  by  undoubted  evi 
dence  that  violations  of  said  act  had  been  committed  and  that  a 
widespread  and  flagrant  disregard  of  it  was  contemplated,  the 
proper  officers  were  instructed  to  prosecute  the  offenders,  and 
troops  were  stationed  at  convenient  points  to  aid  these  officers, 
if  necessary,  in  the  performance  of  their  official  duties.  Complaints 
are  made  of  this  interference  by  federal  authority;  but  if  said 
amendment  and  act  do  not  provide  for  such  interference  under 
the  circumstances  as  above  stated,  then  they  are  without  mean 
ing,  force,  or  effect,  and  the  whole  scheme  of  colored  enfranchise 
ment  is  worse  than  mockery  and  little  better  than  a  crime."  (Rich 
ardson,  Messages  and  Papers,  vol.  vn,  p.  297.) 


A   SOLID   SOUTH   IN   THE   MAKING      461 

had  determined  to  redeem  the  State.  And  there  were 
reports  which  gained  wide  credence  in  the  North 
of  "riots,  murderings,  assassinations  and  torturings" 
more  common  than  at  any  time  since  Lee's  surrender. 
These  stories  were  discredited  by  newspaper  writers, 
but  Grant  under  authority  of  the  Enforcement  Acts 
sent  679  soldiers  to  Alabama  to  insure  a  fair  election. 
Yet  in  face  of  this  display  of  force  which  emboldened 
the  negroes  to  vote  the  Republican  ticket,  a  Dem 
ocratic  Governor  and  Legislature  were  elected  by 
comfortable  majorities.  A  select  committee  of  the 
House  of  Representatives  investigated  the  election, 
and  the  Republican  members  reported  that  it  was 
carried  by  "fraud,  violence,  proscription,  intimida 
tion,  and  murder."  The  Democrats  admitted  that 
there  were  riots  in  several  places  on  election  day, 
in  which  the  negroes  got  the  worst  of  it,  but  they 
maintained  that  in  these  riots  the  negroes  were  ag 
gressors. 

In  Arkansas  there  had  been  in  1872  an  armed  dis 
pute  between  the  followers  of  Brooks  and  those  of 
Baxter  —  rival  Republican  candidates  for  Governor. 
Grant  recognized  Baxter,  the  more  conservative  of 
the  two,  as  the  lawful  executive.  Baxter's  Legisla 
ture  passed  a  bill  calling  a  constitutional  convention. 
The  people  endorsed  this  action.  The  constitution 
framed  by  this  convention  was  ratified  on  October 


462  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

15,  1874,  by  popular  vote  and  on  the  same  day  A.  H. 
Garland,  Democrat,  afterward  Attorney- General  of 
the  United  States,  was  elected  Governor  with  a  Dem 
ocratic  Legislature  and  four  Democratic  Congress 
men.  The  President  took  up  the  Arkansas  problem 
from  a  new  viewpoint.  On  February  8,  1875,  he  sent 
a  special  message  to  Congress,  expressing  the  opin 
ion  that  Brooks,  instead  of  Baxter,  had  been  legally 
elected  Governor  in  1872;  that  he  had  been  illegally 
deprived  of  the  possession  of  the  office  since  that 
time;  that  "in  1874  the  constitution  of  the  State  was 
by  violence,  intimidation,  and  revolutionary  proceed 
ings  overthrown  and  a  new  constitution  adopted  and 
a  new  State  Government  established."  He  asserted 
that  these  proceedings,  if  permitted  to  stand,  practi 
cally  ignored  all  rights  of  minorities  in  all  the  States. 
"...  I  earnestly  ask  that  Congress  will  take  definite 
action  in  this  matter  to  relieve  the  Executive  from 
acting  upon  questions  which  should  be  decided  by 
the  legislative  branch  of  the  Government." 

Grant's  thought  was  that  all  proceedings  under  the 
illegal  Baxter  regime  should  be  annulled,  in  which 
event  Brooks  would  be  restored  to  the  office  which 
was  rightfully  his  under  the  old  constitution  till 
January,  1877. 

A  committee  of  the  House,  headed  by  Luke  P. 
Poland,  reported  a  resolution  that  "in  the  judgment 


A   SOLID   SOUTH   IN   THE   MAKING      463 

of  this  House  no  interference  with  the  existing  gov 
ernment  in  Arkansas  by  any  department  of  the  Gov 
ernment  of  the  United  States  is  advisable,"  and  the 
resolution  was  adopted  by  the  overwhelming  vote  of 
150  to  81,  in  a  House  overwhelmingly  Republican. 
Poland  in  supporting  his  resolution  asserted  that  the 
change  from  one  constitution  to  another  was  as 
peaceful  a  change  as  ever  took  place  in  his  own  State 
of  Vermont;  that  under  the  Garland  Government 
everything  was  as  peaceful  and  quiet  as  in  Massa 
chusetts. 

In  February,  1875,  a  Civil  Rights  Bill  was  en 
acted,  not  quite  on  Sumner's  lines,  aimed  to  secure 
to  negroes  equal  rights  in  inns,  public  conveyances, 
theaters,  and  other  places  of  amusement  and  to  pre 
vent  their  disqualification  for  services  as  jurors.  It 
was  a  wanton  irritant,  futile  in  results ;  for  eight  years 
later,  in  1883,  the  Supreme  Court  declared  its  chief 
provisions  unconstitutional. 

In  Mississippi  there  was  a  condition  different  from 
either  Arkansas  or  Alabama.  The  Legislature,  in  con 
trol  of  negroes  and  carpet-baggers,  had  laid  heavy 
taxes  for  the  support  of  an  ambitious  system  of 
public  schools  which  roused  the  indignation  of  the 
Ku-Klux  Klan  and  led  to  persecution  of  the  negroes 
and  Northern  women  who  came  there  to  teach. 
Adelbert  Ames,  who  had  seen  gallant  service  in  the 


464  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

Army  of  the  James,  was  Governor.  He  was  an  earn 
est  and  consistent  champion  of  the  negro.  In  Vicks- 
burg,  where  over  half  the  population  were  negroes, 
the  whites,  exasperated  by  high  taxes,  forced  Crosby, 
the  Republican  sheriff,  to  resign.  Ames  told  the  sher 
iff  to  hold  his  office,  and  Crosby  called  upon  the  ne 
groes  of  the  county  to  sustain  him.  There  were  riots 
in  which  twenty-nine  negroes  and  two  whites  were 
killed.  Sheridan,  who  was  in  command  at  New  Or 
leans,  sent  soldiers  to  Vicksburg.  Crosby  was  rein 
stated  and  peace  restored. 

In  1875  the  "men  of  intelligence  and  property" 
organized  to  carry  the  election  and  control  the  Leg 
islature.  There  were  fifteen  thousand  more  negro 
voters  in  the  State  than  whites.  The  problem  was  to 
persuade  the  negroes  to  vote  the  Democratic  ticket 
or  stay  away  from  the  polls.  "Peaceful  persuasion'* 
was  the  programme,  but,  unfortunately,  Mississippi 
had  the  shotgun  habits  of  other  frontier  communi 
ties;  every  one  carried  either  a  bowie  knife  or  a 
pistol.  Negro  meetings  were  broken  up  by  armed 
white  bands.  A  few  whites  and  many  negroes  were 
killed;  negroes  were  shot  down  in  cold  blood  by  way 
of  retribution  for  the  killing  of  the  whites.  Ames 
telegraphed  to  Grant,  asking  him  to  proclaim  mar 
tial  law.  But  Grant  refused.  "The  whole  public," 
Grant  telegraphed  to  Attorney-General  Pierrepont 


A   SOLID   SOUTH   IN   THE   MAKING      465 

from  Long  Branch,  "are  tired  out  with  these  an 
nual  autumnal  outbreaks  in  the  South,  and  the  great 
majority  are  ready  now  to  condemn  any  interference 
on  the  part  of  the  Government.  I  heartily  wish  that 
peace  and  good  order  may  be  restored  without  issu 
ing  the  proclamation,  but  if  the  proclamation  must 
be  issued  I  shall  instruct  the  commander  of  the 
forces  to  have  no  child's  play;  the  laws  will  be  exe 
cuted  and  the  peace  will  be  maintained  in  every 
street  and  highway  of  the  United  States." 

Ames,  full  of  pugnacity,  organized  the  state  mili 
tia,  mostly  negroes,  and  armed  them  with  Springfield 
breech-loaders.  The  whites  formed  military  com 
panies  of  their  own,  and  bloodshed  would  have  been 
general  had  it  not  been  for  a  "peace  agreement" 
brought  about  through  the  conciliatory  efforts  of  an 
agent  of  the  Department  of  Justice.  Ames  disbanded 
his  militia  and  the  Democratic  bands  dispersed,  but 
while  the  menacing  civil  warfare  was  averted,  intimi 
dation  proved  equally  effective. 

The  "Mississippi  Plan,"  as  it  was  called,  consisted 
in  an  organized  conspiracy  to  frighten  the  negroes 
away  from  the  polls.  Salutes  with  cannon  were  fired 
on  the  public  roads;  "To  let  the  niggers  know  that 
there  was  going  to  be  a  fair  election,"  Private  John 
Allen  said.  Horsemen  with  ropes  tied  to  the  pommels 
of  their  saddles  would  ride  up  to  a  polling-place  where 


466  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

black  voters  were  waiting  to  cast  their  ballots.  "How 
soon  will  the  polls  be  opened?"  one  asked  another. 
" In  about  fifteen  minutes,"  was  the  reply.  "  Then  the 
hanging  will  not  begin  for  about  fifteen  minutes," 
was  the  response.  Not  a  word  to  the  blacks,  but  be 
fore  the  fifteen  minutes  were  up,  they  had  all  dis 
appeared.  The  Democrats  carried  the  election  by 
nearly  31,000,  had  a  majority  of  93  in  the  Legis 
lature,  elected  most  of  the  county  officers,  and  4  out 
of  6  members  of  Congress. 

Grant  wrote  on  July  26,  1876:  "Mississippi  is 
governed  to-day  by  officials  chosen  through  fraud  and 
violence  such  as  would  scarcely  be  accredited  to  sav 
ages,  much  less  to  a  civilized  and  Christian  people." 
Ames  was  impeached  by  the  new  Legislature,  but 
the  Legislature  subsequently  dismissed  the  charges 
and  Ames  resigned.  "  He  bore  himself,"  wrote  Roger 
A.  Pryor,  "like  a  brave  and  honorable  gentleman." 

Of  all  cases  that  of  Louisiana  was  the  hardest. 
The  struggle  there  was  marked  by  differences  be 
tween  Republican  factions  as  well  as  by  Democratic 
resistance  to  carpet-bag  rule.  Henry  C.  Warmoth, 
heading  one  faction,  disclosed  conservative  tenden 
cies.  Opposed  to  him  were  S.  B.  Packard,  United 
States  Marshal,  and  William  Pitt  Kellogg,  who  had 
been  a  lawyer  in  Illinois,  Colonel  of  an  Illinois  regi 
ment  in  the  Civil  War,  and  whom  Lincoln  had  made 


A   SOLID   SOUTH   IN   THE   MAKING      467 

Collector  of  Customs  at  New  Orleans  in  1865.  War- 
moth  in  1872  had  joined  the  conservative  Democrats 
in  supporting  a  fusion  state  ticket  headed  by  John 
McEnery  as  candidate  for  Governor.  Kellogg  was 
the  Republican  candidate.  Both  sides  claimed  the 
election  of  Governor  and  Legislature.  Under  the 
Louisiana  law  a  returning  board  composed  of  the 
Governor,  the  Lieutenant-Governor,  the  Secretary 
of  State,  and  two  others  specifically  named  had  the 
power  of  throwing  out  the  returns  from  any  voting- 
places  which  in  their  judgment  had  been  carried  by 
violence,  intimidation,  bribery,  or  corrupt  influence. 
Warmoth,  who  had  the  returns  in  his  own  hands, 
reconstructed  the  returning  board;  the  new  board 
announced  the  election  of  McEnery  and  enough 
fusion  members  of  the  Legislature  to  make  a  major 
ity.  The  Republicans  got  up  a  returning  board  of 
their  own  and  declared  Kellogg  with  a  Republican 
Legislature  elected.  The  United  States  Circuit  Judge 
issued  an  order  late  at  night  directing  the  United 
States  Marshal  to  take  possession  of  the  State  House. 
Packard  was  not  only  sheriff,  but  chairman  of  the 
State  Committee.  By  authority  of  the  Attorney- 
General  he  had  the  United  States  troops  at  his  dis 
posal,  and  with  them  he  seized  and  held  the  State 
House.  Under  his  protection,  Kellogg  assumed  the 
governorship. 


468  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

Grant  sent  a  special  message,  February  25,  1873, 
arguing  in  favor  of  the  Kellogg  Government.  He 
said  that  if  Congress  took  no  action  he  should  recog 
nize  and  support  it. 

Turbulence  followed  in  the  trail  of  recognition. 
There  was  a  massacre  at  Colfax  on  the  Red  River, 
three  hundred  and  fifty  miles  from  New  Orleans, 
within  two  months,  white  men  riding  into  the  town 
and  demanding  that  the  negroes  lay  down  their  arms 
and  surrender  the  court-house.  The  court-house  in 
which  sixty  or  seventy  negroes  had  taken  refuge  was 
fired;  as  the  negroes  rushed  out,  some  were  killed 
and  some  were  captured.  Those  captured  were  merci 
lessly  shot  down.  In  all,  the  negroes  killed  at  Colfax 
were  fifty-nine,  whites  only  two.  "This  deed  was 
without  palliation  or  justification,"  wrote  George  F. 
Hoar,  who  as  chairman  of  a  congressional  committee 
made  a  report.  "It  was  deliberate,  barbarous,  cold 
blooded  murder.  It  will  stand  like  the  Massacre  of 
Glencoe  or  St.  Bartholomew,  a  foul  blot  on  the  page 
of  history,"  -  hyperbole  again,  perhaps,  but  the 
bloody  deed  was  black  enough  to  have  a  marked 
effect  upon  the  feeling  of  the  North,  which  was  begin 
ning  at  that  time  to  turn  against  the  men  who  were 
exploiting  negro  suffrage  for  their  own  political  gain. 
A  little  over  a  year  later,  at  Coushatta,  a  little  farther 
up  the  river,  there  was  another  massacre,  equally 


A   SOLID   SOUTH   IN   THE   MAKING      469 

foul.  After  an  assault  upon  the  blacks  by  mem 
bers  of  the  White  League,  with  killing  on  both  sides, 
six  white  Republican  office-holders,  lately  from  the 
North,  gave  themselves  up  to  the  White  League,  who 
had  demanded  that  they  resign.  While  they  were 
being  taken  under  guard  to  Shreveport,  they  were 
set  on  by  another  band  and  murdered  in  cold  blood. 

Grant  having  withdrawn  the  federal  troops,  except 
a  few  who  were  still  garrisoned  in  New  Orleans,  the 
white  conservatives,  on  September  14,  1874,  started 
an  insurrection  in  that  city,  barricaded  the  streets, 
fought  with  the  colored  metropolitan  police,  and 
seized  the  State  House,  where  their  leaders  started 
to  reorganize  the  Government.  Grant  at  once  sent 
troops,  under  whose  protection  the  Kellogg  Govern 
ment  was  set  up  again.  The  armed  force  sustaining 
the  conservatives  was  broken  up. 

In  the  election  for  members  of  the  Legislature  in 
1874,  the  conservatives  on  the  face  of  the  returns 
elected  a  majority  of  29.  Kellogg's  returning  board, 
after  weeks  of  thought,  threw  out  conservatives  on 
charges  of  intimidation  and  fraud  till  they  found  that 
53  conservatives  and  53  radicals  had  been  elected. 
With  regard  to  five  seats  they  rendered  no  decision. 
When  the  Legislature  met  in  January,  1875,  there 
were  scenes  of  wild  disorder.  The  conservatives 
seized  control,  elected  a  speaker,  and  seated  their 


470  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

five  contestants  for  the  vacant  seats.  The  Republi 
cans  withdrew  in  order  to  break  a  quorum. 

General  de  Trobriand,  armed  with  an  order  from 
Kellogg  to  clear  the  hall  of  all  persons  not  returned 
as  legal  members  by  the  returning  board,  appeared 
with  a  file  of  soldiers.  With  fixed  bayonets  the 
soldiers  approached  one  by  one  each  of  the  five 
members  sitting  in  his  place  and  forced  him  to  leave 
the  hall.  The  conservative  Speaker  and  his  party 
withdrew,  the  Republicans  returned  and  organized 
as  best  they  could. 

Sheridan,  whom  Grant  had  ordered  to  New  Orleans, 
now  assumed  command.  "I  think,"  he  telegraphed, 
"that  the  terrorization  now  existing  in  Louisiana, 
Mississippi,  and  Arkansas  could  be  entirely  removed 
and  confidence  and  fair  dealing  established  by  the 
arrest  and  trial  of  the  ringleaders  of  the  armed  White 
League.  If  Congress  would  pass  a  bill  declaring  them 
banditti  they  could  be  tried  by  a  military  commission. 
.  .  .  It  is  possible  that  if  the  President  would  issue  a 
proclamation  declaring  them  banditti,  no  further 
action  need  be  taken,  except  that  which  would  de 
volve  upon  me." 

Belknap,  the  Secretary  of  War,  telegraphed  Sheri 
dan:  "The  President  and  all  of  us  have  full  confidence 
and  thoroughly  approve  your  course.  ...  Be  assured 
that  the  President  and  Cabinet  confide  in  your  wis- 


A   SOLID   SOUTH   IN   THE   MAKING      471 

dom  and  rest  in  the  belief  that  all  acts  of  yours  have 
been  and  will  be  judicious." 

The  opposition  newspapers  in  the  North  and  the 
anti-Administration  band  in  the  Senate  flamed  out 
against  Sheridan,  against  de  Trobriand,  especially 
against  Grant.  "If  this  can  be  done  in  Louisiana," 
cried  Schurz,  "and  if  such  things  be  sustained  by 
Congress,  how  long  will  it  be  before  it  can  be  done  in 
Massachusetts  and  Ohio?  .  .  .  How  long  before  a 
general  of  the  Army  may  sit  in  the  chair  you  occupy, 
sir,  to  decide  contested  election  cases,  for  the  purpose 
of  manufacturing  a  majority  in  the  Senate?  How 
long  before  a  soldier  may  stalk  into  the  National 
House  of  Representatives  and,  pointing  to  the 
Speaker's  mace,  say,  'Take  away  that  bauble!"1 
Indignation  meetings  were  held  in  Cooper  Institute 
and  Faneuil  Hall. 

Charles  Foster,  William  Walter  Phelps,  and  Clark- 
son  N.  Potter,  a  congressional  committee  who  had 
been  in  New  Orleans  to  investigate  the  action  of 
Kellogg's  returning  board,  and  who  were  there  during 
the  disturbances  at  the  State  House,  united  in  a 
report  "that  the  action  of  the  returning  board  on  the 
whole  was  arbitrary,  unjust,  and,  in  our  opinion, 
illegal,"  and  that  this  alone  prevented  the  return  of 
a  conservative  majority  in  the  Legislature.  They 
asserted  that  "the  conviction  has  been  general  among 


472  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

the  whites  since  1872  that  the  Kellogg  Government 
was  an  usurpation."  Another  committee,  consisting 
of  George  F.  Hoar,  William  A.  Wheeler,  and  William 
P.  Frye,  reported  that  intimidation  had  prevented 
"a  full,  free,  and  fair  election"  in  1874  and  that  Gen 
eral  de  Trobriand's  interference  "alone  prevented  a 
scene  of  bloodshed."  On  their  recommendation  the 
"Wheeler  Compromise"  was  accepted,  giving  a  con 
servative  majority  in  the  House;  the  Senate  was 
Republican;  by  resolution  the  Legislature  agreed  not 
to  disturb  the  Kellogg  Government. 

South  Carolina  for  a  moment  shot  a  ray  of  light 
across  the  gloom.  Daniel  H.  Chamberlain,  a  Massa 
chusetts  soldier,  a  lawyer,  a  graduate  of  Yale,  with 
high  ideals,  Attorney-General  from  1868  to  1872, 
with  fine  courage  set  his  face  against  misrule.  He  was 
elected  Governor  in  1874,  succeeding  the  scoundrel 
Moses,  who  in  his  turn  had  followed  the  disreputable 
Scott.  He  vetoed  numerous  plunder  bills,  reformed 
the  courts,  and  cut  loose  from  the  rogues.  "My 
highest  ambition,"  he  said,  "has  been  to  make  the  as 
cendancy  of  the  Republican  party  in  South  Carolina 
compatible  with  the  attainment  and  maintenance 
of  as  high  and  pure  a  tone  in  the  administration  of 
public  affairs  as  can  be  exhibited  in  the  proudest 
State  of  the  South."  In  his  two  years  as  Governor 
he  partially  succeeded.  But  he  was  not  omnipotent. 


CHAPTER  XLIII 

THE  WHISKEY  RING  — THE  BELKNAP  CASE  — 
GRANT'S  STEADFAST  LOYALTY  —  THE  CHIEF 
JUSTICESHIP 

"GRANT  is  honest  as  Old  Jack  Taylor,"  Sherman 
wrote  home  from  Vicksburg  in  reply  to  hints  of  deals 
with  traders  who  swarmed  the  Union  camps  bar 
tering  their  country  for  Mississippi  cotton;  and  it  is 
history  that  attacks  on  Grant  all  through  the  war 
originated  with  unscrupulous  contractors  whose  crook 
edness  he  had  exposed,  forbidding  them  to  ply  their 
wretched  traffic  in  his  jurisdiction.  Yet  he  was  fated 
in  the  White  House  to  be  a  ready  target  for  the  press 
by  reason  of  disclosures  affecting  men  in  whom  he 
placed  his  trust.  Our  Civil  War,  like  every  other  war 
in  history,  had  left  corruption  in  its  trail,  though  dif 
fering  from  most  others  in  the  rapidity  with  which 
men  set  themselves  to  cleaning  out  the  thieves  and 
the  contemporaneous  publicity  of  the  disclosures. 
Many  suspicious  things  which  came  to  light  while 
Grant  was  President  would  have  occasioned  little 
comment  in  other  times  or  other  countries.  It  is  a 
lasting  tribute  to  the  spirit  of  the  day  that  evildoers 
were  so  quickly  brought  to  punishment,  though  at 


474  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

the  moment,  the  very  triumph  of  reform  cast  on  the 
period  a  cloud  which  history  has  not  yet  dispelled, 
for  history,  like  politics,  is  ever  true  to  form  in  over 
emphasizing  superficial  faults  at  the  expense  of  in 
grained  quality. 

Grant  did  not  seek  the  easy  fame  which  comes  to 
the  crusader;  he  had  no  mission  to  reform  the  ways  of 
other  men;  he  was  so  wholly  human  that  he  could 
never  quite  divorce  his  public  functions  from  his  pri 
vate  life.  As  President  he  kept  about  him  those  he 
liked,  and  while  we  may  regret  his  taste  in  choice  of 
some  of  his  companions,  we  cannot  blame  the  faith 
with  which  he  clung  to  them.  "Grant  was  the  only 
man  I  ever  knew,"  says  one  who  was  for  eight  years 
at  his  side,  "upon  whose  promise  you  could  safely  go 
to  sleep.  He  never  failed  to  keep  his  word  even  in  the 
smallest  things.  If  once  he  pledged  himself  you  could 
dismiss  it  from  your  mind,  and  travel  round  the 
world.  It  would  be  done."1  This  trait  of  constancy 
contributed  to  his  success,  but  in  conjunction  with 
his  childlike  trust  it  was  a  dangerous  thing,  which 
brought  him  bitterness  of  soul.  Experience  did  not 
seem  to  profit  him.  He  had  the  unsuspecting  chivalry 
of  friendship;  throughout  his  life  his  sympathy  went 
out  to  those  he  thought  the  victims  of  injustice; 
though  they  might  be  at  fault,  his  instinct  was  to 
1  General  C.  C.  Sniffen. 


THE   WHISKEY   RING  475 

shield  them  from  attack.  In  the  grim  chase  of  justice 
his  heart  ran  with  the  fox,  not  with  the  hounds. 

Of  all  the  men  by  whom  he  stood  for  good  or  bad, 
Babcock,  his  aide  and  secretary,  brought  him  the 
greatest  care,  for  Babcock  had  a  genius  for  getting 
into  scrapes,  some  doubtless  innocent  for  all  their 
ugliness.  He  was  charged  first  with  mercenary  aims 
in  San  Domingo;  but  there  was  never  any  evidence 
that  he  was  guilty  there  of  anything  but  indifference 
to  proprieties.  The  fact  that  he  was  then  exonerated 
tied  Grant  more  closely  to  him,  as  one  who  had  been 
persecuted  in  a  cause  Grant  had  at  heart. 

Babcock  was  charged  with  having  had  a  hand  in 
paving  contracts  when  Alexander  Shepard  was  Gov 
ernor  of  the  District,  but  could  be  blamed  apparently 
for  nothing  worse  than  indiscretion.  Shepard  was 
ruthless  in  his  methods;  undoubtedly  his  friends  made 
money  out  of  real  estate  and  contracts  under  his 
regime;  but  nothing  short  of  ruthlessness  could  have 
wrought  such  miracles  as  he  performed  almost  in  a 
night  while  changing  Washington  from  a  straggling, 
ragged  town  of  mud  and  huts  into  a  Capital  with  spa 
cious  avenues  consistent  with  the  splendid  plans  of 
1'Enfant  three  quarters  of  a  century  before.  The 
country  rang  with  cries  against  "Boss"  Shepard  at 
the  time,  and  Congress  changed  the  form  of  govern 
ment,  creating  a  commission  for  the  District  in  order 


476  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

to  get  rid  of  him  as  Governor  and  eliminate  the  "Dis 
trict  Ring."  Grant  aroused  resentment  when  he  sent 
Shepard's  nomination  to  the  Senate  as  one  of  the 
Commissioners.  Shepard,  discredited  and  poor,  be 
took  himself  to  Mexico,  but  when  he  came  back,  af 
ter  twenty  years  of  exile,  he  was  the  hero  of  a  civic 
demonstration.  His  statue  now  embellishes  the  Ave 
nue  which  he  restored. 

Babcock  became  the  center  of  the  scandal  of  the 
"Whiskey  Ring,"  dragging  the  President  himself  into 
a  compromising  place.  The  story  of  the  Whiskey 
Ring  is  an  unhappy  chapter  of  the  time.  Bristow,  who 
succeeded  Richardson  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
in  June,  1874,  had  some  experience  as  a  prosecuting 
officer  through  having  been  a  federal  attorney,  but 
he  was  little  known  outside  Kentucky  until  he  made 
his  record  in  the  Treasury  as  a  minister  of  reform. 
There  he  found  matters  ready  at  his  hand  to  test  his 
quality  and  add  to  his  repute. 

For  years  there  had  been  frauds  upon  the  revenue 
through  a  conspiracy  of  distillers  and  rectifiers  in  the 
whiskey-making  centers  of  the  Middle  West,  —  St. 
Louis,  Chicago,  and  Milwaukee,  —  who,  with  the 
connivance  of  dishonest  internal  revenue  officials, 
cheated  the  Treasury  out  of  taxes  due.  The  richest 
pickings  were  in  Johnson's  time,  but  it  is  said  that 
during  three  years,  under  Grant,  three  times  more 


THE   WHISKEY  RING  477 

whiskey  was  shipped  from  St.  Louis  alone  than 
paid  the  tax,  and  that  the  Government  in  six  years 
was  defrauded  out  of  revenue  amounting  to  nearly 
$3,000,000.  It  had  long  been  suspected  that  frauds 
were  perpetrated  on  the  revenue  by  the  distillers; 
and  with  Grant's  approval  in  the  summer  of  1874 
steps  had  been  taken  to  put  a  stop  to  them,  but  with 
out  success;  the  service  was  so  honeycombed  with 
clerks  participating  in  illegal  profits  of  the  ring  that 
any  move  to  interfere  with  the  conspirators  was 
promptly  known  to  every  one  involved.  It  was  not 
till  G.  W.  Fishback,  editor  of  the  "St.  Louis  Demo 
crat,"  gave  to  Bristow  secret  information  and  with 
Bristow's  sanction  set  unofficial  agencies  to  work, 
that  it  was  possible  to  ferret  out  the  methods  of  the 
ring  without  some  guilty  partner  in  the  Treasury 
divulging  what  was  going  on.  This  word  was  confi 
dentially  conveyed  to  Bristow  in  February,  1875,  and 
on  the  10th  of  May,  after  a  train  of  evidence  had  been 
laid  skillfully,  he  lit  tjie  fuse.  Simultaneous  raids 
were  made  all  over  the  United  States.  In  St.  Louis, 
Milwaukee,  and  Chicago,  sixteen  distilleries  and  six 
teen  rectifying  establishments  were  seized,  and  fraud 
ulent  packages  were  found  in  almost  every  other 
town  of  any  size.  The  thing  at  once  had  public  noto 
riety  and  for  months  thereafter  newspapers  spread 
the  record  of  the  revelations  and  the  trials.  Grant 


478  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

was  well  in  touch  with  the  inquiry  and  joined  in  the 
pursuit. 

Before  long  it  was  found  that  Babcock  had  been 
corresponding  with  the  leaders  of  the  ring,  and  there 
were  intimations,  not  only  that  he  shared  the  profits, 
but  that  he  used  this  means  of  raising  funds  for 
Grant's  election  in  1872  and  was  preparing  to  finance 
a  third  term  by  the  same  device.  Helping  Dyer,  the 
Government  Attorney,  in  the  preparation  of  the  case, 
was  John  B.  Henderson,  the  former  Senator,  one  of 
Grant's  most  malignant  critics.  McDonald,  the  super 
visor  at  St.  Louis,  who  was  convicted  and  jailed,  says 
that  Henderson  asked  him  to  plead  guilty  and  be 
come  a  witness  for  the  Government  (promising  him 
immunity  from  punishment).  Because  of  his  devo 
tion,  he  says,  he  refused  to  testify  against  Grant  and 
Babcock  and  went  to  the  penitentiary  willingly  in 
order  to  preserve  Grant  and  the  Nation  from  scandal.1 
Barnard,  a  St.  Louis  banker,  wrote  to  Grant,  de 
nouncing  Henderson  and  Dyer,  and  urging  that  "the 
interest  of  the  Government  and  your  own  past  record 
should  be  protected  by  additional  counsel  .  .  .  re 
gardless  of  the  prospective  influence  of  press,  party, 

1  Rhodes,  vol.  vn,  p.  187.  But  McDonald's  book,  Secrets  of  the 
Great  Whiskey  Ring,  which  was  issued  as  a  campaign  document  in 
1880,  is  a  mass  of  falsehoods,  and  while  some  of  the  statements  may 
have  been  correct  by  accident,  it  is  not  safe  to  accept  a  single  one 
of  them  as  true.  McDonald  could  not  have  written  the  book  him 
self.  He  was  illiterate. 


THE   WHISKEY  RING  479 

or  self-aggrandizement."  The  letter  gave  the  names 
of  many  who  should  be  called  as  witnesses  and  told 
of  revenue  officials  who  had  been  quoted  as  saying 
Grant  could  not  give  them  up  or  Babcock  would  be 
lost.  This  letter  came  to  Grant  at  Long  Branch  on 
July  29,  and  he  at  once  referred  it  to  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury  with  an  endorsement  in  his  own 
hand:  "...  I  forward  this  for  information  and  to  the 
end  that  if  it  throws  any  light  upon  new  parties  to 
summon  as  witnesses  they  may  be  brought  out.  Let 
no  guilty  man  escape  if  it  can  be  avoided.  Be  specially 
vigilant  —  or  instruct  those  engaged  in  the  prosecu 
tion  of  fraud  to  be  —  against  all  who  insinuate  that 
they  have  high  influence  to  protect  —  or  to  protect 
them.  No  personal  consideration  should  stand  in  the 
way  of  performing  a  public  duty." 

The  ink  was  hardly  dry  on  this  historic  note  before 
conspiracies  began  to  multiply  within  conspiracies. 
Those  implicated  in  the  frauds  upon  the  revenue,  in 
wriggling  to  escape,  were  glad  for  a  pretense  to  drag 
the  scandal  to  the  White  House  door,  in  hope  that 
this  might  bring  to  them  immunity.  Bristow,  an 
honest  and  courageous  man  himself,  had  in  his  train 
a  stream  of  flatterers  exciting  his  political  ambition, 
and  the  press  began  to  talk  about  him  as  a  candidate 
for  President.  Around  Grant  there  revolved  a  multi 
tude  of  satellites,  continually  whispering  a  third  term 


480  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

and  poisoning  his  mind  against  the  machinations  of 
the  friends  of  Bristow.  Pervading  the  Administration 
was  the  venom  of  distrust.  In  August  the  investi 
gators  found  a  dispatch  from  Babcock  addressed  to 
an  indicted  officer,  signed  "Sylph,"  and  reading,  "I 
have  succeeded.  They  will  not  go.  I  will  write  you." 
This  was  interpreted  to  mean  that  he  had  kept  the 
ring  informed  about  the  Treasury's  activities.  Much 
was  made  of  this  dispatch  till  it  was  found  to  have 
no  bearing  on  the  frauds,  though  it  suggested  a  com 
panionship  impure  in  other  ways. 

A  little  later  Grant,  with  Babcock,  visited  several 
Western  cities,  St.  Louis  with  the  rest,  and  before  he 
started  Bluford  Wilson,  Solicitor  of  the  Treasury, 

• 

wrote  to  Henderson  reminding  him  of  the  importance 
of  neglecting  no  precaution  "to  reach  the  bottom  or 
top  of  the  conspiracy,"  and  advising  that  the  defend 
ants  be  placed  under  strict  surveillance  "for  the  next 
ten  days  or  two  weeks";  and  Wilson  later  said:  "I 
wrote  that  letter  intending  that  General  Babcock 
should  be  looked  after.  If  he  was  in  the  ring,  I  in 
tended  to  catch  him  if  it  was  in  my  power.  If  he  was 
not,  I  intended  to  demonstrate  his  innocence  beyond 
the  shadow  of  a  doubt  if  it  were  possible  to  do  so." 
The  manner  of  this  chase  of  Babcock  angered 
Grant,  who  was  convinced  that  a  plot  was  hatching 
to  besmirch  himself.  Two  of  the  ring  had  been  con- 


THE   WHISKEY   RING  481 

victed,  and  in  December,  on  evidence  which  these 
trials  divulged,  Babcock  was  indicted  in  St.  Louis 
"for  conspiracy  to  defraud  the  revenue,"  a  special 
military  court  of  inquiry  having  previously  been 
called  at  Babcock's  request.  Critics  of  the  Adminis 
tration  declared  that  this  court,  which  never  sat  to 
hear  the  case,  was  granted  to  forestall  the  civil  suit. 
Henderson  in  the  course  of  one  of  the  trials  had 
cried:  "What  right  had  the  President  to  interfere 
with  the  honest  discharge  of  the  duties  of  a  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury?  None  whatever !  Is  it  to  continue  in 
this  country  that  because  a  man  holds  an  office  at  the 
hands  of  another  he  is  to  become  his  slave?"  —  and 
much  more  to  the  same  purport.  When  this  was  read 
by  Grant,  he  promptly  ordered  Henderson's  dismis 
sal,  a  step  which,  coming  the  day  after  Babcock's 
indictment,  caused  a  wild  outcry  in  the  press,  though 
Henderson  was  replaced  with  James  O.  Brodhead, 
the  Democratic  head  of  the  St.  Louis  bar,  at  least  as 
good  a  man  as  Henderson  had  been.  The  change  was 
first  talked  over  in  the  Cabinet,  and  every  member, 
including  Bristow,  voted  for  Henderson's  removal, 
regarding  his  performance  "as  an  outrage  upon  pro 
fessional  propriety." 

Grant  was  viciously  attacked  because  with  his  ap 
proval  the  Attorney-General  sent  a  letter  to  all  dis 
trict  attorneys  to  stop  the  wholesale  granting  of  im- 


482  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

munities,  which  had  been  instigated  by  the  Treasury 
to  reach  men  "higher  up."  "Suggestions  have  been 
made,"  he  wrote,  "that  quite  too  many  guilty  men 
are  to  go  unpunished.  ...  I  am  determined  as  far  as 
lies  in  my  power  to  have  these  prosecutions  so  con 
ducted  that  when  they  are  over,  the  honest  judgment 
of  the  honest  men  of  the  country  —  which  is  sure  in 
the  main  to  be  just  —  will  say  that  no  one  has  been 
prosecuted  from  malice,  and  that  no  guilty  one  has 
been  let  off  through  favoritism,  and  that  no  guilty 
one  who  has  been  proved  guilty  or  confessed  himself 
guilty  has  been  suffered  to  escape  punishment."1 

A  copy  of  this  letter  fell  into  Babcock's  hands  and 
he  gave  it  to  the  press.  "They  were  trying  to  destroy 
me,"  he  explained  to  the  Attorney-General,  "and  I 
had  a  right  to  anything  I  could  get  hold  of";  and 
Pierrepont  testified  before  the  House  Committee, 

1  Out  of  all  those  indicted  and  as  a  result  of  several  trials,  only 
three  of  the  St.  Louis  ring  served  a  jail  sentence.  One  of  these  was 
McDonald,  who  was  sentenced  to  three  years'  imprisonment  and 
was  pardoned  after  serving  two.  Former  Paymaster-General  Cul 
ver  C.  Sniffen,  who  was  one  of  Grant's  secretaries  throughout  both 
Administrations,  and  who  has  made  a  careful  study  of  the  records, 
says:  "A  surprising  number  of  immunities  from  punishment  were 
granted  to  confessed  criminals.  Out  of  forty-seven  persons  indicted 
in  Chicago  during  October  and  November,  1875,  criminal  immunity 
was  granted  in  advance  of  the  time  for  trial  in  almost  every  instance, 
while  up  to  August  4,  1876,  but  three  of  them  had  been  given  light 
jail  sentences  and  representatives  of  the  distillers  were  then  in 
Washington  claiming  civil  immunity.  In  St.  Louis,  out  of  fourteen 
distillers,  thirteen  pleaded  guilty  in  one  day  and  none  received 
other  than  civil  punishment,  while  the  acknowledged  organizer  of 


THE   WHISKEY   RING  483 

"I  heard  the  President  say  five  or  six  times  in  the 
progress  of  the  case,  '  If  Babcock  is  guilty  there  is  no 
man  who  wants  him  so  much  proven  guilty  as  I  do, 
for  it  is  the  greatest  piece  of  traitor  ism  to -me  that  a 
man  could  possibly  practice.'" 

When  Babcock's  trial  came  off  in  February,  Grant 
asked  to  be  a  witness,  and  at  his  request  his  deposi 
tion  was  taken  at  the  White  House  by  the  Chief  Jus 
tice  of  the  United  States,  Bristow  and  Pierrepont 
present,  with  attorneys  for  Babcock  and  the  Govern 
ment.  He  swore  that  he  had  never  seen  anything  in 
the  conduct  or  talk  of  Babcock  which  indicated  to 
his  mind  connection  with  the  Whiskey  Ring;  that 
Babcock  had  evinced  fidelity  and  integrity  as  regards 
the  public  interest,  performed  his  duties  as  private 
secretary  "to  my  entire  satisfaction";  that  "I  have 
always  had  great  confidence  in  his  integrity  and  effi 
ciency";  and  that  "I  never  had  any  information 
from  Babcock  or  any  one  else  indicating  in  any 
manner,  directly  or  indirectly,  that  any  funds  for 
political  purposes  were  being  raised  by  any  improper 

the  ring  escaped  punishment  altogether.  The  court  stated  in 
advance  that  any  one  who  pleaded  guilty  would  not  be  sentenced 
until  all  the  cases  had  been  disposed  of  except  those  who  had 
absconded,  and  most  of  the  cases  were  later  dismissed.  According 
to  a  statement  given  out  by  the  Attorney-General  and  printed  in 
the  New  York  Herald,  February  29,  1876,  there  had  been  at  that 
time  253  indictments.  Of  these  40  distillers,  6  distillery  employees, 
and  21  others  had  pleaded  guilty.  There  had  been  17  trials,  result 
ing  in  13  convictions,  3  acquittals  and  1  disagreement." 


484  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

methods."  He  swore  that  Babcock  never  spoke  to 
him  about  the  charges  against  the  Whiskey  Ring, 
and  had  not  sought  to  influence  him  in  any  way. 
He  went  with  full  detail  into  his  own  relation  to  the 
investigation;  said  that  if  Babcock  had  been  guilty 
of  misconduct  he  would  have  known  it.  The  un 
precedented  spectacle  of  the  President  proffering  his 
testimony  in  a  case  like  this,  his  boldness  in  coming 
forward  to  defend  his  secretary,  his  accepted  hon 
esty,  had  a  far-reaching  influence,  and  silenced  all 
but  the  most  raucous  critics.  Not  through  Grant's 
testimony,  but  through  the  absence  of  convincing 
evidence,  Babcock  was  speedily  acquitted. 

The  "New  York  Tribune,"  which  up  to  that  mo 
ment  had  been  vitriolic  in  its  comments,  declaring 
that  a  President  with  such  a  complete  misconception 
of  the  nature  and  limitations  of  his  authority  "is 
better  fitted  to  rule  an  Asiatic  kingdom  than  a  free 
American  republic,"  now  had  to  congratulate  the 
country  heartily  on  the  result:  "The  indictment  has 
been  submitted  to  the  severest  legal  tests.  No  one 
can  complain  that  the  court  was  biased  in  General 
Babcock's  favor,  or  that  the  prosecution  was  ineffi 
cient,  or  that  the  jury  were  prepossessed.  ...  At  the 
entrance  of  the  White  House,  the  scandal  has  been 
met  and  turned  back."1 

1  New  York  Tribune,  February  25,  1876. 


THE   WHISKEY   RING  485 

Babcock  was  acquitted  on  February  24.  When  he 
returned  to  Washington  he  went  as  usual  to  his  desk. 
Grant  followed  him,  and  the  two  were  closeted  for  a 
long  time.  When  Grant  came  out,  his  face  was  set  in 
silence.  A  little  later  Babcock  locked  his  desk  and 
left  the  room.  He  never  came  back  to  the  White 
House  as  a  secretary,  and  thereafter  occupied  his 
other  office  blocks  away  as  Superintendent  of  Public 
Buildings  and  Grounds.  It  has  been  said  that  Bab 
cock  for  a  time  was  restored  to  his  old  place.  That 
is  not  true.  His  intimate  relations  with  the  President 
were  not  renewed.1 

Nor  did  Grant  forgive  the  men  whom  he  believed 
had  tried  to  bring  the  White  House  into  the  affair. 
Bristow  to  his  mind  was  one  of  these.  He  had  not 
liked  the  manner  of  Bristow's  handling  of  the  case, 
and  in  the  progress  of  the  investigation  they  had 
many  differences.2  Bristow  was  beset  with  enemies 

1  E.  Rock  wood  Hoar,  a  hard-headed  man  and  an  acute  judge 
of  his  fellows,  knew  Grant  through  and  through  and  believed  him 
strictly  and  thoroughly  honest.    "  But,  do  you  feel  sure,"  he  was 
asked,  "that  in  all  these  suspicious  transactions  no  money  stuck 
to  his  fingers?"  With  a  purposed  anachronism  to  give  emphasis  to 
his  quaint  remark,  he  replied:  "  I  would  as  soon  think  St.  Paul  had 
got  some  of  the  thirty  pieces  of  silver."   (Rhodes,  vol.  vn,  p.  188.) 

2  "  As  for  the  President,  those  who  know  the  most  of  the  secret 
history  of  this  move  are  freest  to  declare  that  in  no  instance  did  he 
do  anything  designed  by  him  to  protect  the  guilty  or  impede  the 
course  of  justice.  That  his  acts  and  his  delays  often  accomplished 
both  is  now  painfully  apparent. 

"  At  the  same  time  it  is  true  that  whenever  the  ring,  by  false 


486  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

who  carried  tales  to  Grant  and  Grant  had  critics  who 
encouraged  Bristow.  The  Secretary  more  than  once 
resigned,  but  was  induced  by  Grant  to  stay.  And 
Grant  once  had  made  up  his  mind  to  ask  for  Bristow's 
resignation.  After  Babcock's  acquittal  Bristow  was 
summoned  before  the  investigating  committee  of  the 
Democratic  House,  looking  for  material  to  use  in  the 
political  campaign,  but  he  declined  to  testify,  claim 
ing  that  proceedings  of  the  Cabinet  were  privileged. 
Grant  released  him  promptly:  "I  beg  to  relieve  you 
from  all  obligations  of  secrecy  on  this  subject,  and 
desire  not  only  that  you  may  answer  all  questions 
relating  to  it,  but  that  all  members  of  my  Cabinet 
and  ex-members  of  my  Cabinet  may  also  be  called 
upon  to  testify  in  regard  to  the  same  matter."  Grant 

representations,  had  developed  serious  Executive  opposition  to 
some  feature  of  the  prosecutions,  or  excited  suspicion  against  the 
Secretary,  the  latter,  until  a  late  day,  was  always  able  to  remove 
both,  and  disconcert  the  ring  by  a  plain  and  courageous  talk  with 
the  President.  On  these  occasions  General  Grant  always  inclined 
to  the  right.  But  the  constant  recurrence  of  such  explanations^ 
and  the  infamous  character  of  the  plottings  which  made  them 
necessary,  continually  impeded  the  prosecutions  and  discouraged 
the  Secretary.  It  is  also  true  that  on  several  occasions  when  he 
had  decided  to  resign,  the  President  insisted  upon  his  remaining, 
and  for  a  time  thereafter  the  contingency  of  a  resignation  for  such 
causes  seemed  to  render  the  President  alive  to  the  situation. 

"  Considering  the  nature  and  influence  of  the  forces  arrayed 
against  the  Secretary,  and  the  facilities  they  enjoyed  for  constant 
access  to  the  President,  it  is  scarcely  a  matter  of  wonder  that  at 
times  his  eyes  were  blinded  and  his  deepest  prejudices  aroused." 
(Henry  V.  Boynton  in  North  American  Review,  October,  1876.) 


THE   WHISKEY   RING  487 

was  angry,  too,  because  the  Treasury  sought  to  indict 
Logan,  against  whom  there  was  no  evidence,  and 
to  discredit  others  of  his  friends  who  were  supposed 
to  be  in  favor  of  a  third  term.  Four  days  after  the 
Cincinnati  Convention,  Bristow  walked  over  to  the 
White  House,  met  the  President  at  the  foot  of  the 
stairs  leading  to  the  Executive  offices,  took  from  his 
pocket  an  envelope  and  handed  it  to  Grant,  who  went 
his  way  without  a  word,  entered  his  buggy  at  the  door 
and  took  his  usual  drive.  It  was  Bristow's  resignation. 
A  few  days  later  Grant  asked  Postmaster-General 
Jewell  to  resign.  He  had  sided  strongly  with  Bristow 
all  the  time,  and  had  had  other  differences  with  his 
official  chief.  The  next  day  James  N.  Tyner,  the  As 
sistant  Postmaster-General,  was  summoned  to  the 
White  House.  "Mr.  Tyner,"  said  the  President,  "I 
have  decided  to  ask  you  for  your  resignation," —  and 
paused.  Tyner  reddened  to  the  neck  and  bowed  sub 
missively.  "And  appoint  you  Postmaster-General," 
continued  Grant. 

The  Democratic  House  elected  in  1874  had  set  it 
self  to  work  as  soon  as  possible  to  get  political  mate 
rial  for  the  campaign  then  near  at  hand,  which  prom 
ised  to  be  closely  fought.  Almost  at  once,  when 
Congress  met,  the  House  began  to  poke  around  for 
scandal.  Committees  were  soon  raking  every  bureau 


488  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

of  administration  for  evidence  of  those  Republican 
misdeeds  concerning  which  the  press  had  been  so 
clamorous.1  They  had  comparatively  little  time  for 
ordinary  legislation.  After  weeks  of  unrequited  labor, 
one  of  the  committees  investigating  expenditures  in 
the  War  Department  fell  on  the  Belknap  case.  The 
Belknaps  had  been  socially  ambitious  and  the  women 
of  the  family  were  extravagant.  The  Secretary  had 
no  money  and  his  salary  was  small.  His  wife  in  trying 
to  devise  new  means  of  income  was  told  of  the  post 
traderships,  which  had  for  years  been  let  by  contract 
to  favored  bidders,  and  offered  generous  rewards  to 
thrift.  Belknap,  who  became  Secretary  after  Raw- 
lins,  had  not  been  in  office  long  when  Mrs.  Belknap, 
visiting  the  New  York  house  of  Caleb  P.  Marsh,  sug 
gested  that  Marsh  apply  for  a  post  tradership  and 
give  to  her  a  share  of  the  emoluments.  Marsh  made 
application  for  a  rich  post  at  Fort  Sill,  in  Indian 
Territory,  and  was  told  to  see  the  incumbent  Evans, 

1  "  Members  of  both  parties  have  been  represented  in  every  great 
fraud  yet  discovered  in  Washington.  The  old  Indian  Ring  of  the 
days  when  Democracy  ruled  eclipsed  all  later  efforts  of  Republican 
thieves.  The  palmy  days  of  the  Whiskey  Ring  were  in  Andrew 
Johnson's  time;  for  then  the  spirit  tax  was  higher.  Credit  Mobilier 
had  its  Democratic  participators;  so  of  Black  Friday  and  Pacific 
Mail;  so  of  the  District  Ring;  so  of  land  jobs;  and  so  of  the  Mem 
phis  and  El  Paso  swindle.  It  was  even  impossible  for  Republican 
rascals  to  shake  off  Democrats  when  they  came  to  rob  the  black 
man's  savings-bank."  (Henry  V.  Boynton  in  North  American 
Review,  October,  1876.) 


THE    BELKNAP    CASE  489 

who  was  then  in  Washington  looking  to  keep  the 
place.  The  two  agreed  that  Marsh  should  not  press 
for  the  position,  but  should  receive  from  Evans  as 
the  price  of  his  withdrawal  $12,000  annually,  to  be 
paid  him  quarterly  in  advance.  Payments  began  in 
1870,  and  as  each  arrived  one  half  was  sent  to  Mrs. 
Belknap.  There  was  no  certain  evidence  that  Bel- 
knap  knew  about  the  deal.  It  was  said  in  his  defense 
that  he  supposed  the  money  to  be  income  on  invest 
ments,  as  his  wife  was  understood  to  have  some  prop 
erty  before  she  married  him.  Mrs.  Belknap  died,  and 
payments  were  continued  as  before,  although  they 
were  reduced  by  half  as  Marsh's  dividends  from 
Evans  were  cut  in  two.  In  all,  the  Belknaps  received 
$20,000.  Heister  Clymer,  as  chairman  of  the  Com 
mittee  on  Expenditures  in  the  War  Department,  re 
ported  on  March  2,  1876,  that  at  "the  very  threshold 
of  their  investigation  "  the  committee  had  found  un- 
contradicted  evidence  of  Belknap's  malfeasance,  and 
recommended  that  he  be  impeached  of  high  crimes 
and  misdemeanors  while  in  office.  The  House  at  once 
adopted  a  resolution  of  impeachment  by  a  unanimous 
vote. 

Clymer's  report  was  not  presented  until  three 
o'clock  that  afternoon,  but  by  ten  o'clock  that  morn 
ing  Belknap,  anticipating  what  would  happen,  had 
resigned  his  place,  and  Grant  immediately  accepted 


490  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

the  resignation  "with  great  regret."  Proceedings  in 
the  Senate  hung  on  till  August,  and  conviction  failed 
for  lack  of  a  two-thirds  majority.  Most  of  those  who 
voted  against  conviction  were  said  to  have  believed 
in  Belknap's  guilt,  but  as  he  was  already  separated 
from  his  office,  doubted  the  Senate's  jurisdiction  in 
the  case.  Belknap  took  up  his  residence  in  Washing 
ton,  and  though  in  disgrace  and  poverty,  he  retained 
his  personal  popularity  until  his  death.  There  still 
lurks  around  the  Capital  a  tale  of  knightly  sacrifice 
to  save  a  woman's  name. 

When  Cox  resigned  as  Secretary  of  the  Interior, 
because  he  thought  the  President  did  not  sustain 
him  in  his  fight  against  the  politicians  bent  on  spoils, 
Grant  said  the  trouble  was  that  Cox  had  made  him 
self  impossible,  because  he  thought  himself  of  too 
great  consequence.1  Columbus  Delano,  who  took  the 
place,  was  an  Ohio  lawyer  of  good  repute  at  home,  but 
lacking  in  the  quality  to  circumvent  the  schemers 
who  from  the  establishment  of  the  department  have 
sought  its  exploitation  for  pecuniary  gain.  Indian 
rings  and  land  rings  reveled  in  his  administration, 
much  to  the  public  scandal,  and  at  last,  discouraged 

1  "The  trouble  was  that  General  Cox  thought  the  Interior 
Department  was  the  whole  government,  and  that  Cox  was  the 
Interior  Department.  I  had  to  point  out  to  him  in  very  plain 
language  that  there  were  three  controlling  branches  of  the  Govern 
ment,  and  that  I  was  the  head  of  one  of  these  and  would  like  so  to 
be  considered  by  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior."  (Garland,  p.  427.) 


THE   CHIEF   JUSTICESHIP  491 

by  his  inability  to  handle  his  accumulating  evils,  he 
resigned.  Chandler,  of  Michigan,  had  just  been 
beaten  for  the  Senate,  and  Grant  gave  him  the  place. 
Chandler  did  not  stand  well  with  the  professional 
reformers,  and  they  received  the  tidings  with  alarm. 
Some  thought  it  meant  the  triumph  of  corruption, 
for  Chandler,  always  forceful  and  direct,  had  bitterly 
denounced  "reform"  and  treated  its  apostles  with 
contempt.  He  was  a  Stalwart  to  the  marrow,  and  a 
Republican  of  the  unbending  type,  a  sturdy  Western 
pioneer,  who  had  had  a  striking  business  success.  He 
believed  in  spoils  and  patronage  and  all  the  ways  of 
politics  which  men  like  Schurz  and  Godkin  specially 
abhorred,  but  his  administration  stands  as  an  exam 
ple  of  effectiveness  which  none  of  his  successors  has 
surpassed.  He  drove  the  money-changers  out  of  the 
department,  squelched  the  rings,  and  cleaned  the 
place  where  public  plunder  had  intrenched  itself  for 
many  years.  He  gave  a  new  exemplification  of  prac 
tical  reform.1 

Grant  was  one  of  the  few  Presidents  to  whom  has 
fallen  the  impressive  responsibility  of  selecting  a 
Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 

1  Schurz  in  succeeding  him  was  impelled  to  write:  "  I  think  I 
am  expressing  the  general  opinion  of  the  country  when  I  say  you 
have  succeeded  in  placing  the  Interior  Department  in  far  better 
condition  than  it  has  been  in  for  years,  and  that  the  public  is  in 
debted  to  you  for  the  very  energetic  and  successful  work  you  have 
performed."  (Life  of  Chandler,  p.  355.) 


492  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

States.  When  the  chance  came  to  him  upon  the  death 
of  Chase  in  1873,  he  went  at  it  as  if  he  were  called 
upon  to  pick  a  chief  of  staff.  It  must  be  said  that 
in  this  temper  he  did  not  differ  much  from  other 
Presidents  whose  antecedents  should  have  given 
them  respect  for  the  great  functions  of  the  court, 
but  who  for  personal  or  party  reasons  have  chosen 
justices  without  considering  first  of  all  preeminence 
on  the  bench  or  at  the  bar.  The  highest  service  done 
their  country  by  Taft  and  Harrison  was  in  the  way 
of  their  upholding  the  noblest  standards  of  the  court. 
No  poorer  service  can  be  done  by  any  President  than 
to  lower  that  court's  prestige;  one  who  would  con 
sciously  force  on  the  bench  a  lawyer  who,  whether 
justly  or  unjustly  had  been  charged  with  unprofes 
sional  practices,  would  thus  prove  his  own  unfitness 
for  his  place. 

Grant  was  a  layman  with  no  pretensions  in  the 
law,  and  so  might  be  excused  some  lack  of  sym 
pathy  with  its  traditions.  Yet  his  selections  for  the 
bench  were  on  the  whole  of  a  high  order.  Stanton, 
Hoar,  Bradley,  Strong,  and  Hunt  were  thoroughly 
equipped  in  legal  knowledge  for  the  court,  and  all 
but  Stanton  had  a  fine  judicial  temper.  Stanton 
was  named  because  the  Senate  asked  for  his  appoint 
ment  when  he  was  at  the  point  of  death.  Hoar, 
though  an  ideal  judge  at  every  point,  was  turned 


THE   CHIEF   JUSTICESHIP  493 

down  by  the  Senate  in  a  pet.  In  each  case,  though 
in  different  ways,  the  Senate  made  of  lawyers  had 
treated  lightly  the  traditions  of  the  court.  Why  then 
should  Grant  hold  it  in  greater  sanctity? 

His  first  choice  fell  on  Conkling,  his  closest  friend 
in  politics,  who  had  ability  commensurate  with  the 
place  and  might  have  taken  rank  among  the  noted 
jurists  of  the  time,  not  only  as  a  lawyer,  but  in  the 
dignity  of  bearing  which  marked  him  as  a  leader  in  his 
State  and  on  the  Senate  floor.  Conkling  was  lordly 
in  his  ways,  and  supercilious,  which  told  against  his 
popularity,  a  lover  of  good  books  who  packed  the 
classics  in  a  capacious  memory,  an  orator  tremen 
dously  imposing  in  his  way,  whose  speeches,  carefully 
elaborated  and  rehearsed,  have  not  survived  the  fame 
of  their  occasion.  He  was  a  Stalwart  politician  with 
no  illusions  or  fine  dreams,  a  firm  believer  in  the  doc 
trine  of  the  spoils,  and  a  past  master  in  its  practice. 

He  had,  by  his  frank  detestation  of  reformers  and 
reform,  roused  the  hostility  of  the  independent  press, 
and  when  word  passed  that  Grant  would  like  to  have 
him  as  Chief  Justice,  a  storm  of  censure  fell  upon 
Grant's  head.  Conkling  refused  the  place  because  he 
much  preferred  the  fray  of  politics.  He  was  still 
young  and  had  no  wish  to  shrine  himself  upon  the 
bench.  Then  Grant,  for  lack  of  something  better 
close  at  hand,  offered  the  place  to  George  H.  Wil- 


494  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

Hams,  his  Attorney-General.  Williams,  who  hailed 
from  Oregon,  had  little  reputation  as  a  lawyer,  and 
had  acquired  the  sobriquet  of  "Landaulet"  because 
his  family  made  social  calls  in  a  department  carriage 
at  the  Government's  expense.  The  Bar  Association 
of  New  York  remonstrated  against  his  confirmation, 
as  he  was  "wanting  in  those  qualifications  of  intel 
lect,  experience,  and  reputation  which  are  indispen 
sable  to  uphold  the  dignity  of  the  highest  national 
court."  The  Senate  dallied  with  the  nomination, 
which  was  withdrawn  at  Williams's  request. 

Then  Grant  sent  in  the  name  of  Caleb  Gushing,  a 
learned  lawyer  who  had  fame  at  the  bar  and  in  diplo 
macy  and  who  had  been  the  leading  counsel  of  the 
United  States  in  the  Geneva  Arbitration.  But  with 
all  his  intellectual  astuteness,  wide  culture,  and  plaus 
ibility,  Cushing's  political  and  professional  record 
was  at  fault.  He  had  been  listed  as  a  Copperhead  at 
the  beginning  of  the  war,  and  his  professional  probity 
was  seriously  in  question,  though  Grant  did  not  know 
this  when  he  sent  in  his  name.  Among  right-thinking 
men  he  was  condemned,  as  Howe  and  Hamlin  wrote, 
"  because  he  lacked  principle."  For  this  reason,  the 
nomination  would  have  been  rejected*  if  it  had  been 
kept  before  the  Senate,  but  Grant's  supporters  spared 
him  this  rebuff  by  offering  in  evidence  a  letter  which 
Cushing  wrote  in  March,  1861,  to  his  "dear  friend" 


THE    CHIEF   JUSTICESHIP  495 

Jefferson  Davis  to  recommend  another  friend  for  an 
appointment  in  the  Confederate  Civil  Service.  Giv 
ing  this  letter  as  an  excuse,  the  Senate  Republicans 
in  caucus  asked  that  the  nomination  be  withdrawn, 
and  this  was  done.  Cushing's  is  almost  the  only  case 
in  the  entire  history  of  the  court  where  the  profes 
sional  integrity  of  a  nominee  to  that  tribunal  has 
been  in  question.  Even  to  have  the  question  raised 
should  be  sufficient  reason  to  disqualify;  for  confirma 
tion  by  a  partisan  majority  cannot  remove  the  stain; 
and  one  who  takes  his  place  upon  the  bench  in  face 
of  charges  not  disproved  shows  himself  by  that  act 
alone  to  be  unworthy  of  the  gown.  Grant  tried 
again  for  Conkling,  but  without  success,  and  then 
named  Morrison  R.  Waite,  a  little-known  Ohio  law 
yer,  whose  only  national  repute  had  come  from  serv 
ice  among  the  counsel  before  the  Geneva  Tribu 
nal.  Waite  was  a  modest  man  who  stood  well  at 
the  Ohio  bar.  He  was  not  open  to  objection.  His 
fourteen  years  of  service  as  Chief  Justice  reflected 
credit  on  the  court  and  fully  justified  his  choice. 


CHAPTER  XLIV 

THE  DISPUTED  ELECTION  OF  1876 

As  the  time  drew  near  for  choosing  a  new  President, 
parties  began  to  take  account  of  stock.  Grant,  though 
the  target  for  sustained  abuse  by  the  Democratic 
and  the  independent  press,  still  stood  high  in  the 
estimation  of  the  people,  and  there  was  talk  about 
another  term.  The  faults  of  his  Administration  had 
been  overemphasized,  but  the  public  was  not  fooled, 
though  in  the  way  of  politics  men  looked  for  change. 
They  had  not  been  enamored  of  the  Democratic 
House  with  which  they  had  been  saddled  as  the  price 
of  discontent.  Its  muck-raking  propensities,  its  petty 
scramble  for  cheap  spoils,  its  parade  of  party  spawn 
like  Doorkeeper  Fitzhugh,  boasting  that  he  was 
"biger  than  old  Grant,"  had  made  it  something  of  a 
stench  and  failed  to  whet  the  country's  appetite  for 
more.  But  industry  was  paralyzed  and  times  were 
out  of  joint. 

Stalwart  Republicans  like  Conkling,  Cameron,  and 
Logan  felt  that,  while  the  party  had  lost  ground, 
talk  of  a  third  term  for  Grant  would  keep  the  ranks 
intact.  But  Grant  was  tired  of  controversy  and 
wanted  to  retire.  Early  in  1875  the  Pennsylvania 


THE   DISPUTED   ELECTION   OF    1876     497 

Republicans  were  ready  to  endorse  him  for  another 
term,  and  the  President  of  their  convention  wrote 
him  so.  He  made  up  his  mind  at  once,  called  a  meet 
ing  of  the  Cabinet  to  tell  them  what  he  was  going  to 
do,  and  mailed  personally  a  letter  in  reply  declaring: 

"The  idea  that  any  man  could  elect  himself  Presi 
dent,  or  even  renominate  himself,  is  preposterous. 
Any  man  can  destroy  his  chances  for  an  office,  but 
none  can  force  an  election  or  even  a  nomination.  I 
am  not  nor  have  I  ever  been  a  candidate  for  renom- 
ination.  I  would  not  accept  a  nomination  if  it  were 
tendered,  unless  it  should  come  under  such  circum 
stances  as  to  make  it  an  imperative  duty  —  circum 
stances  not  likely  to  arise." 

The  censorious  said  there  was  a  string  to  this  re 
fusal,  but  it  did  the  work. 1  Before  the  meeting  of  the 
National  Republican  Convention  in  June,  1876,  the 
third-term  talk  had  died  away. 

Elaine,  the  most  fascinating  figure  of  the  day,  out 
of  touch  with  the  Administration  group,  was  mar- 

1  So  persistent  did  the  pressure  become  as  time  went  on  that, 
when  Congress  came  together  in  December,  a  resolution  in  the 
House,  presented  by  the  Democrats  and  supported  by  77  out  of  88 
Republicans,  was  passed  as  follows:  "That,  in  the  opinion  of  this 
House,  the  precedent  established  by  Washington  and  other  Presi 
dents  of  the  United  States,  in  retiring  from  the  presidential  office 
after  their  second  term,  has  become,  by  universal  occurrence,  a 
part  of  our  republican  system  of  government,  and  that  any  de 
parture  from  this  time-honored  custom  would  be  unwise,  unpatri 
otic,  and  fraught  with  peril  to  our  free  institutions." 


498  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

velously  popular,  but  there  were  whispers  that  as 
Speaker  he  had  been  involved  in  questionable  deals, 
and  in  spite  of  all  he  and  his  friends  could  say  this 
led  to  his  undoing.  Conkling  and  Morton  had  their 
followers  and  each  hoped  for  Grant's  support,  but 
he  kept  his  hands  off  the  convention.  He  had  a  secret 
notion  that  in  case  of  a  close  struggle  Fish  was  a  likely 
compromise,  and  he  wrote  a  letter  to  be  used  if  Fish 
should  have  a  chance.1  Bristow  was  a  strong  favorite 
with  the  reformers.  They  could  not  stand  with  any 
one  who  stood  with  Grant,  but  they  were  equally  at 
odds  with  Elaine.  Hayes  was  the  Ohio  candidate  — 
a  man  of  unassuming  merit  with  a  record  in  the  Civil 

1  "  I  took  no  part  in  the  discussions  antecedent  to  the  Cincinnati 
Convention,  because  the  candidates  were  friends,  and  any  one, 
except  Mr.  Bristow,  would  have  been  satisfactory  to  me,  would 
have  had  my  heartiest  support.  Bristow  I  never  would  have  sup 
ported  for  reasons  that  I  may  give  at  some  other  time  in  a  more 
formal  manner  than  mere  conversation.  Mr.  Blaine  would  have 
made  a  good  President.  ...  I  did  not  see  any  nomination  for 
Blaine,  Morton,  or  Conkling.  Bristow  was  never  a  serious  candi 
date,  never  even  a  probability.  Looking  around  for  a  dark  horse, 
in  my  own  mind  I  fixed  on  Fish.  Bayard  Taylor  said  to  me  in 
Berlin  that  the  three  greatest  statesmen  of  this  age  were  Cavour, 
Gortchakoff,  and  Bismarck.  I  told  him  I  thought  there  were  four, 
that  the  fourth  was  Fish,  and  that  he  was  worthy  to  rank  with  the 
others.  This  was  the  estimate  I  formed  of  Fish  after  eight  years  of 
Cabinet  service,  in  which  every  year  increased  him  in  my  esteem. 
So  I  wrote  a  letter  to  be  used  at  the  proper  time  —  after  the 
chances  of  Blaine,  Morton,  and  Conkling  were  exhausted  — •  ex 
pressing  my  belief  that  the  nomination  of  Governor  Fish  would  be 
a  wise  thing  for  the  party.  The  time  never  came  to  use  it.  Fish 
never  knew  anything  about  this  letter  until  after  the  whole  con 
vention  was  over."  (Young,  vol.  u,  pp.  273-75.) 


THE   DISPUTED   ELECTION   OF    1876     499 

War,  who  in  1874  had  led  the  fight  against  inflation 
in  his  State,  defeating  "Fog  Horn"  Allen,  Demo 
cratic  candidate  for  Governor,  thus  for  the  time 
eliminating  that  financial  heresy  from  the  Democratic 
creed.  There  were  other  "favorite  sons." 

There  is  little  doubt  that  Elaine  would  have  been 
chosen  but  for  a  chain  of  circumstances  which  need 
not  be  detailed.  The  deadly  enmity  of  Conkling  and 
the  dramatic  series  of  disclosures  skillfully  staged  to 
catch  the  public  notice  as  the  convention  was  about 
to  meet  make  a  rare  chapter  in  the  history  of  the 
time.  Not  even  Conkling's  hatred  or  the  work  of  the 
machine  could  have  defeated  him  had  it  not  been  for 
the  pervasive  dread  that  he  might  prove  a  vulnerable 
candidate.  The  elements  opposed  to  Blaine  at  last 
combined  on  Hayes,  and  on  the  seventh  ballot  Hayes 
was  nominated.  No  other  name  could  have  been 
found  to  cause  so  little  disappointment  among  the 
friends  of  rival  candidates,  and  when  the  Democrats 
a  few  days  later  named  Tilden,  who  had  been  elected 
Governor  of  New  York  in  1874,  there  was  a  feeling 
that  the  lines  were  drawn  for  a  respectable  campaign. 
"There  is  very  little  to  choose  between  the  candi 
dates,"  wrote  Lowell,  and  many  Liberal  Republicans 
came  back  into  the  fold. l 

1  Henry  Watterson  has  given  us  a  charming  picture  of  the 
Democratic  candidate,  who  was  his  personal  friend:  — 

"To  his  familiars,  Mr.  Tilden  was  a  dear  old  bachelor,  who  lived 


500  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

But  the  contest  developed  virulence.  The  Demo 
crats  were  voluble  against  Republican  misrule.  "Re 
form  is  necessary!"  was  their  cry,  and  "Turn  the 
Rascals  out!"  Their  platform  called  for  the  repeal  of 
the  Resumption  Act,  but  Tilden  was  regarded  as  a 
friend  of  sound  finance.  The  Republicans,  deprived 
of  the  inflation  issue  on  which  they  counted,  began  to 
"wave  the  bloody  shirt"  and  to  point  the  finger  at 
the  "Rebel  Brigadiers"  who,  through  "bull-dozing" 
and  intimidation,  they  said,  were  conspiring  to  return 
to  national  control  by  joining  to  a  "Solid  South"  the 
slums  of  the  great  cities  of  the  North.  Tilden  had 
made  false  income  tax  returns  during  the  Civil  War; 
he  was  the  first  of  presidential  candidates  to  "tap 
a  bar'l"  or  employ  a  "literary  bureau."  Zachariah 

in  a  fine  old  mansion  in  Gramercy  Park.  Though  sixty  years  of  age 
he  seemed  in  the  prime  of  his  manhood;  a  genial  and  overflowing 
scholar;  a  trained  and  earnest  doctrinaire;  a  public-spirited,  pa 
triotic  citizen,  well  known  and  highly  esteemed,  who  had  made 
fame  and  fortune  at  the  bar,  and  had  always  been  interested  in 
public  affairs. 

"He  was  a  dreamer  with  a  genius  for  business,  a  philosopher  yet 
an  organizer.  He  pursued  the  tenor  of  his  life  with  measured  tread. 
.  .  .  His  home  life  was  a  model  of  order  and  decorum,  his  house 
as  unchallenged  as  a  bishopric,  its  hospitality,  though  select,  profuse 
and  untiring.  .  .  .  He  was  a  lover  of  books  rather  than  music  and 
art,  but  also  of  horses  and  dogs  and  out-of-door  activity.  His 
tastes  were  frugal,  and  their  indulgence  was  sparing.  He  took  his 
wine  not  plenteously,  though  he  enjoyed  it  ...  and  sipped  his 
whiskey  and  water  on  occasion  with  a  pleased  composure,  redolent 
of  discursive  talk.  .  .  .  His  judgment  wras  believed  to  be  infalli 
ble."  (Century,  May,  1913.) 


THE    DISPUTED   ELECTION   OF    1876     501 

Chandler  was  chairman  of  the  committee  in  charge 
of  the  Republican  campaign  and  William  E.  Chand 
ler,  who  had  been  secretary  in  the  two  preceding 
campaigns,  was  now,  as  a  member  of  the  Committee 
from  New  Hampshire,  specially  assisting  him  —  two 
brainy  and  courageous  managers,  who  knew  no  senti 
ment  in  politics  except  success,  and  who,  while  repre 
sentative  of  different  Republican  schools,  were  both 
intensely  loyal  in  the  party  faith.  Abram  S.  Hewitt 
was  the  Democratic  chairman,  but  Tilden  was  him 
self  a  deft  political  manipulator  and  really  handled 
the  campaign. 

It  looked  on  Election  night  as  though  the  Demo 
crats  had  won,  and  with  two  conspicuous  exceptions, 
every  newspaper  in  the  United  States  made  that 
announcement,  basing  this  judgment  on  the  fact  that 
Tilden  had  carried  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Connecti 
cut,  and  Indiana,  and  the  assumption  that  he  had 
the  "Solid  South,"  which  would  have  given  him  a 
safe  majority.  And  now  there  conies  a  passage  in  our 
history  hardly  surpassed  in  fiction. 

William  E.  Chandler,  who  had  gone  home  to  vote, 
arrived  at  headquarters  in  the  Fifth  Avenue  Hotel 
just  before  daylight  to  find  the  place  deserted,  the 
other  officers  of  the  committee  having  gone  to  bed 
convinced  that  Hayes  had  lost.  He  met  there  John 
C.  Reid,  news  editor  of  the  "New  York  Times," 


502  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

with  information  that  the  late  returns  bore  indica 
tions  of  possible  Republican  success,  and  by  a  process 
of  swift  calculation  perceived  that  the  result  de 
pended  on  the  votes  of  Florida,  Louisiana,  South 
Carolina,  Oregon,  and  California.  He  sent  at  once 
to  party  leaders  in  each  State  dispatches  of  which 
the  following  is  typical :  "  Hayes  is  elected  if  we  have 
carried  South  Carolina,  Florida  and  Louisiana.  Can 
you  hold  your  State?  Answer  immediately." 

Here  began  a  controversy  which  put  our  form  of 
government  to  a  crucial  test.  Zachariah  Chandler 
later  in  the  morning  endorsed  the  action  of  the 
younger  Chandler,  announcing  that  "if  the  dis 
patches  are  correct,  and  he  has  no  reason  to  doubt 
them,  Governor  Hayes  is  elected  beyond  a  doubt," 
and  a  dispatch  was  sent  broadcast  which  has  become 
historic:  "Hayes  has  185  electoral  votes  and  is 
elected."  * 

1  "  On  election  day  in  the  afternoon  I  went  from  Concord  to 
Boston  and  on  to  New  York  by  night  train,  reaching  the  Fifth 
Avenue  Hotel  a  little  before  complete  daylight.  Mr.  \  ilas  at  the 
clerk's  desk  told  me  that  Tilden  was  elected.  I  said  1  could  not 
believe  it  and  went  around  to  the  committee  room  No.  1.  There 
was  no  one  there.  In  the  hallway  I  met  John  C.  Reid,  of  the 
New  York  Times,  just  arriving.  He  told  me  that  if  we  had  carried 
South  Carolina  and  Florida,  also  one  or  two  small  far  Western 
States,  we  had  saved  the  election.  We  went  into  the  committee 
room,  I  examined  the  various  dispatches  on  the  deserted  desks  and 
then  went  up  to  Senator  Chandler's  room  and  with  difficulty 
aroused  him  from  sleep  and  told  him  what  we  hoped,  and  asked 
him  if  he  knew  to  whom  he  had  been  telegraphing  in  several 


THE   DISPUTED   ELECTION   OF   1876     503 

There  were  days  of  great  excitement,  claims  and 
counter-claims.  Hayes  must  have  all  the  votes  of  the 
disputed  States  to  win.  It  was  known  almost  at  once 
that  Oregon  and  California  were  safe,  and  that  South 
,  Carolina  was  Republican  on  the  face  of  the  returns. 
As  Chamberlain,  the  Governor,  was  candidate  for 
reelection,  it  was  assumed  that  in  that  State  there 
would  be  no  change.  Chamberlain,  remembering  the 
"Hamburg  Massacre"  and  fearing  election  riots,  had 
asked  for  troops.  Grant  had  sent  them,  and  they  were 
now  at  the  state  capital.1 

States  the  night  before.  He  was  very  weary  and  gave  me  little  in 
formation  and  told  me  to  do  what  I  thought  best,  Returning  to 
the  committee  room  I  wrote  various  dispatches,  signing  to  some 
Mr.  Chandler's  name  and  to  others  my  own,  and  Mr.  Reid  took 
them  downtown  to  send  by  telegraph.  Then  I  went  to  breakfast 
and  came  back  to  the  committee  room  about  the  time  that  various 
callers  began  to  arrive  and  shortly  Mr.  Chandler  came  down.  We 
discussed  the  situation  and  he  sent  out  his  famous  telegram, 
"Hayes  has  185  votes  and  is  elected.'  Our  spirits  arose  during  the 
day,  and  in  the  afternoon  there  was  a  consultation  as  to  what 
should  be  done.  Among  other  plans  adopted  it  was  decided  that 
I  must  go  south."  (Statement  by  William  E.  Chandler,  hitherto 
unpublished.) 

1  "In  no  case,  except  that  of  South  Carolina,  was  the  number 
of  soldiers  in  any  State  increased  in  anticipation  of  the  election, 
saving  that  twenty-four  men  and  an  officer  were  sent  from  Fort 
Foote  to  Petersburg,  Virginia,  where  disturbances  were  threatened 
prior  to  the  election. 

"No  troops  were  stationed  at  the  voting-places.  In  Florida  and 
in  Louisiana,  respectively,  the  small  number  of  soldiers  already 
in  the  said  States  were  stationed  at  such  points  in  each  State  as 
were  most  threatened  with  violence,  where  they  might  be  avail 
able  as  a  posse  for  the  officer  whose  duty  it  was  to  preserve  the 


504  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

On  the  face  of  the  returns,  Tilden  had  a  majority 
in  Louisiana  and  Hayes  in  Florida,  but  "  the  face  of 
the  returns"  was  an  uncertain  problem  at  that  junc 
ture,  and  party  leaders  on  both  sides  sped  South, 
while  those  at  home  awaited  the  result  with  tense 
solicitude. 

On  Grant  rested  the  responsibility  for  keeping 
peace.  He  did  not  wait  for  violence  to  develop.  On 
November  10,  three  days  after  the  election,  he  sent 
to  Sherman,  the  General  of  the  Army,  this  dispatch : 
"Instruct  General  Augur  in  Louisiana,  and  General 
Ruger  in  Florida,  to  be  vigilant  with  the  force  at  their 
command  to  preserve  peace  and  good  order,  and  to 
see  that  the  proper  and  legal  boards  of  canvassers 
are  unmolested  in  the  performance  of  their  duties. 
Should  there  be  any  grounds  of  suspicion  of  a  fraudu 
lent  count  on  either  side,  it  should  be  reported  and 
denounced  at  once.  No  man  worthy  of  the  office  of 
President  should  be  willing  to  hold  it  if  counted  in 
or  placed  there  by  fraud.  Either  party  can  afford  to 
be  disappointed  in  the  result.  The  country  cannot 
afford  to  have  the  result  tainted  by  the  suspicion  of 
illegal  or  false  returns." 

peace  and  prevent  intimidation  of  voters.  Such  a  disposition  of 
the  troops  seemed  to  me  reasonable  and  justified  by  law  and  prec 
edent,  while  its  omission  would  have  been  inconsistent  with  the 
constitutional  duty  of  the  President  of  the  United  States  '  to  take 
care  that  the  laws  be  faithfully  executed.' "  (Richardson,  Messages 
and  Papers,  vol.  vn,  pp.  419-20.) 


THE   DISPUTED   ELECTION   OF    1876     505 

On  the  face  of  the  returns  it  appeared  that  Florida 
had  gone  for  Hayes  by  a  plurality  of  48  votes,  a  nar 
row  margin,  which  the  Board  of  State  Canvassers 
increased  int6  a  plurality  of  925  on  the  ground  of 
frauds  and  irregularities.  Only  by  leaning  backward 
could  the  Republican  board  have  given  the  State  to 
Tilden.  The  real  contention  was  in  Louisiana,  where 
on  the  face  of  the  returns,  the  Democratic  electors 
had  majorities  ranging  from  6300  to  8957,  and  where 
the  returning  board,  having  the  final  word,  was  the 
same  board  which  made  the  trouble  in  1874  and  had 
been  condemned  by  two  congressional  committees. 

The  chairman  was  J.  Madison  Wells,  the  former 
Governor,  whom  Sheridan  had  characterized  ten 
years  before  as  a  political  trickster  and  a  dishonest 
man.  The  three  other  members  of  the  board  were  of 
his  moral  stripe;  and  two  of  them  were  negroes.  All 
were  Republicans,  the  only  Democrat  having  resigned 
two  years  before,  leaving  a  vacancy  which  had  not 
been  filled.  With  such  material,  almost  any  re 
sult  might  be  expected,  and  the  country  centered 
its  attention  on  New  Orleans.  "  Visiting  Statesmen  " 
were  quickly  on  the  ground,  Grant  having  invited 
prominent  Republicans  like  Sherman,  Garfield, 
Kasson,  Stanley  Matthews,  and  Lew  Wallace,  while 
Hewitt  asked  as  many  Democrats,  among  them 
Palmer,  Trumbull,  Randall,  Curtis,  Julian,  and 


506  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

Watterson.  Committees  of  these  "Visiting  States 
men"  attended  the  meetings  of  the  returning  board 
and  on  December  6,  the  board  announced  that  Hayes 
electors  had  been  chosen  by  majorities  varying  from 
4626  to  4712,  securing  this  result  by  throwing  out 
13,250  Democratic  votes  and  2042  Republican.  The 
final  sessions  of  the  board  were  held  in  secret  and  it 
was  claimed  by  Hewitt  that  Wells  and  his  associates 
tried  to  sell  out  to  the  Democrats  for  cash.  No  evi 
dence  was  ever  offered.  A  number  of  the  Republi 
can  "Visiting  Statesmen"  on  the  day  of  the  return 
signed  a  statement  which  was  sent  to  Grant  giving 
the  names  of  parishes  along  the  Mississippi  and 
Arkansas  border  where  outrages  had  been  per 
petrated  and  where,  "when  violence  and  intimida 
tion  were  inefficient,  murder,  maiming,  and  mutila 
tion  were  resorted  to."  The  Democratic  statesmen 
signed  a  letter  to  Hewitt,  in  which  they  said,  "The 
fact  that  there  was  no  riot  or  bloodshed  in  any  local 
ity,  no  force,  intimidation,  or  violence  in  any  parish 
in  Louisiana  where  both  parties  voted,  gives  strong 
presumption  that  there  was  no  valid  excuse  for  the 
Republican  voters  in  absenting  themselves  from  the 
polls,  but  they  were  purposely  kept  away  to  subserve 
partisan  ends."  Of  the  Democratic  "Visiting  States 
men"  Palmer,  Trumbull,  and  Julian  were  formerly 
Republicans.  "New  converts  are  proverbially  bitter 


THE   DISPUTED   ELECTION   OF    1876     507 

and  unfair  towards  those  they  have  recently  left," 
remarks  John  Sherman. 

In  a  letter  to  Hayes  just  prior  to  the  determination 
by  the  returning  board,  Sherman  had  written  of  the 
bull-dozed  parishes:  "It  seems  more  like  the  history 
of  hell  than  of  civilized  and  Christian  communities. 
.  .  .  That  you  would  have  received  at  a  fair  election 
a  large  majority  in  Louisiana,  no  honest  man  can 
question."1 

When  the  electors  came  to  ballot  in  the  several 
States  on  December  6,  two  days  after  Congress  met, 
Hayes  had  185  duly  authenticated  votes,  Tilden  184. 
The  Democrats  protested  that  the  four  votes  from 
Florida  and  the  eight  from  Louisiana  rightfully 
belonged  to  Tilden.  They  also  claimed  one  from 
Oregon,  where  a  Republican  elector,  Watts,  was  held 
to  be  ineligible  under  the  Constitution,  being  a  dep 
uty  postmaster.  If  this  claim  were  granted,  Tilden 
would  still  have  185  votes  even  though  the  two 
Southern  States  were  credited  to  Hayes. 

Had  both  branches  of  Congress  been  Republican 
the  contest  would  have  ended  here,  and  Hayes  would 
have  been  declared  elected  in  due  course,  perhaps 
with  oratorical  objection  on  the  part  of  the  minority. 
But  the  Senate,  Republican  by  a  majority  of  17,  was 
offset  by  a  Democratic  House  with  a  majority  of  74. 

1  Recollections,  p.  558. 


508  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

The  Constitution  and  the  statutes  were  inadequate 
to  meet  this  situation.  Republicans,  among  them 
Hayes  himself,  contended  that  when  the  Constitu 
tion  said,  "The  President  of  the  Senate  shall,  in  the 
presence  of  the  Senate  and  the  House  of  Representa 
tives,  open  all  the  certificates  and  the  votes  shall  then 
be  counted,"  it  implied  that  when  there  were  two 
certificates  from  a  State,  the  President  of  the  Senate 
must  decide  which  one  was  valid,  count  the  votes 
and  declare  the  result;  that  it  was  a  mere  ministerial 
duty;  and  that  Congress  had  no  right  to  interfere. 

But  there  had  been  adopted  in  1865  a  joint  rule 
providing  that  "No  vote  objected  to  shall  be  counted 
except  by  the  concurrent  votes  of  the  two  Houses." 
The  rule  had  been  rescinded  by  the  Senate  almost 
unanimously,  and  it  was  not  now  regarded  by  the 
Senate  as  in  force.  Should  the  House,  insisting  on 
the  rule,  reject  the  votes  of  Florida  and  Louisiana, 
Tilden  would  have  a  majority.  The  Senate  could 
not  retaliate  by  rejecting  votes  of  other  Southern 
States,  because,  in  that  event,  there  would  be  no 
election  and  the  Democratic  House  would  then  pro 
ceed  under  the  Constitution  to  elect  Tilden  in  a  vote 
by  States. 

There  seemed  to  be  no  common  ground.  Republi 
cans  throughout  the  country,  with  few  exceptions, 
believed  that  whatever  might  be  the  technicalities 


THE   DISPUTED   ELECTION   OF    1876     509 

about  returning  boards,  Hayes  was  entitled  to  the 
office,  because  if  there  had  been  a  fair  election  he 
would  undoubtedly  have  carried  all  the  disputed 
States  with  others  in  the  South.  The  Democrats 
were  even  more  vehement  in  contending  that  they 
had  chosen  the  electors  in  Florida  and  Louisiana  and 
made  much  also  of  the  undisputed  but  irrelevant 
circumstance  that  throughout  the  country  Tilden 
electors  had  received  a  majority  of  300,000  in  the 
popular  vote. 

There  was  wild  talk  by  frenzied  partisans ;  all  sorts 
of  tales  had  currency;  it  was  said  that  Grant  aspired 
to  dictatorial  power.  There  were  reports  of  South 
ern  rifle  clubs  to  march  on  Washington  to  help  seat 
Tilden;  and  Tilden  "minute  men"  were  said  to  be  en 
rolling  through  the  North  —  an  Army  of  Democratic 
veterans  of  the  Civil  War.  Any  mad  story,  no  matter 
how  impossible,  was  sure  to  have  its  dupes,  and  there 
was  need  of  a  firm  hand  in  Washington.  Grant  was 
self-contained  and  imperturbable.  He  used  all  his 
influence  to  bring  the  embittered  factions  into  line, 
and  so  insure  a  peaceful  settlement  of  the  dispute. 

McCrary,  of  Iowa,  who  afterwards  was  made  by 
Hayes  a  member  of  the  Cabinet,  introduced  a  resolu 
tion  in  the  House  for  a  committee  to  act  in  conjunc 
tion  with  any  similar  committee  appointed  by  the 
Senate  to  report  without  delay  a  measure  through 


510  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

which  might  be  removed  "all  doubts  and  uncer 
tainty"  as  to  the  manner  of  determining  questions 
as  to  the  legality  and  validity  of  returns,  "to  the 
end  that  the  votes  may  be  counted  and  the  result 
declared  by  a  tribunal  whose  authority  none  can 
question  and  whose  decision  all  will  accept  as  final."1 

Grant  knew  about  this  resolution  in  advance  and 
summoning  Hewitt  to  the  White  House  secured  his 
acquiescence  in  the  compromise,  which  promptly 
passed  both  House  and  Senate  without  debate. 
Edmunds  was  chairman  for  the  Senate,  Henry  B. 
Payne,  of  Ohio,  for  the  House. 

The  committees  unanimously  reported  a  bill  for 
an  Electoral  Commission,  to  be  composed  of  five 
Senators,  five  members  of  the  House,  and  four  Jus 
tices  of  the  Supreme  Court,  who  were  to  choose 
another  Justice  of  the  Court,  thus  making  a  commis 
sion  of  fifteen.  The  bill  provided  that  "No  electoral 
vote  or  votes  from  any  State  from  which  but  one 
return  has  been  received  shall  be  rejected  except  by 
the  affirmative  vote  of  the  two  Houses."  In  the  case 
of  States  from  which  there  was  more  than  one  return 
"all  such  returns  and  papers  should  be  submitted  to 
the  judgment  and  decision,  as  to  which  is  the  true 
and  lawful  electoral  vote  of  such  State,"  of  the  Elec 
toral  Commission.  The  decision  of  the  Commission 
1  Ha  worth,  The  Hayes-Tilden  Disputed  Election,  p.  190. 


THE   DISPUTED   ELECTION   OF   1876     511 

could  be  overthrown  only  by  the  concurrence  of  both 
Houses  acting  separately. 

Edmunds,  Conkling,  and  Thurman  delivered  argu 
ments  for  the  bill  which  take  high  rank.  Morton, 
Blaine,  and  Sherman  antagonized  it.  They  said  it 
was  unconstitutional,  but  their  real  reason  was  the 
fear  that  it  would  work  unfavorably  to  Hayes.  The 
bill  was  carried  in  both  branches  by  Democratic 
votes;  26  Democrats  and  21  Republicans  voted  for 
it  in  the  Senate,  16  Republicans  and  one  Democrat 
against.  In  the  House  the  ayes  were  159  Democrats 
and  32  Hepublicans;  the  noes  were  18  Democrats 
and  68  Republicans.  It  was  expected  by  both  parties 
that  the  Commission  would  be  more  likely  to  favor 
Tilden  than  Hayes. 

On  January  29,  Grant  signed  the  bill  and  at  the 
same  time  sent  a  virile  message  announcing  his  ap 
proval.  "It  is  the  highest  duty  of  the  lawmaking 
power,"  he  said,  "to  provide  in  advance  a  constitu 
tional,  orderly,  and  just  method  of  executing  the 
Constitution  in  this  most  interesting  and  critical  of 
its  provisions.  ...  It  must  be  that  one  of  the  two 
candidates  has  been  elected;  and  it  would  be  de 
plorable  to  witness  an  irregular  controversy  as  to 
which  of  the  two  should  receive  or  which  should 
continue  to  hold  the  office.  .  .  .  The  country  is  agi 
tated.  It  needs  and  it  desires  peace  and  quiet  and 


512  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

harmony  between  all  parties  and  all  sections.  Its 
industries  are  arrested,  labor  unemployed,  capital 
idle,  and  enterprise  paralyzed  by  reason  of  the  doubt 
and  anxiety  attending  the  uncertainty  of  a  double 
claim  to  the  Chief  Magistracy  of  the  Nation.  It 
wants  to  be  assured  that  the  result  of  the  election 
will  be  accepted  without  resistance  from  the  support 
ers  of  the  disappointed  candidate,  and  that  its  high 
est  officer  shall  not  hold  his  place  with  a  questioned 
title  of  right." 

During  these  strenuous  days,  when  history  was  in 
the  making  and  his  own  future  with  his  coun 
try's  was  at  stake,  Tilden  withdrew  himself  into  his 
cloistered  sanctuary  in  Gramercy  Park,  feebly  and 
stealthily  whispering  now  and  then  a  futile  scheme. 
While  others  struggled  with  the  tremendous  problem, 
he  "devoted  more  than  a  month  to  the  preparation 
of  a  complete  history  of  the  electoral  counts  from  the 
foundation  of  the  Government,  to  show  it  to  have 
been  the  unbroken  usage  of  Congress,  not  of  the 
President  of  the  Senate,  to  count  the  electoral  votes," 
a  work  which  could  have  been  prepared  almost  as 
well  by  a  skilled  lawyer's  clerk.1  He  was  inadequate 
to  a  great  opportunity,  and  had  he  been  made  Presi 
dent  would  have  been  a  weak  executive,  of  the 
Buchanan  type. 

1  Bigelow,  Life  of  Tilden. 


THE   DISPUTED   ELECTION   OF    1876     513 

The  Democrats  in  Congress  were  fated  to  a  cruel 
disappointment.  The  Justices  of  the  Supreme  Court 
indicated  in  the  bill  were  Clifford,  Strong,  Miller,  and 
Field,  representing  four  great  geographical  divisions, 
and  equally  divided  in  their  political  beliefs.  It  was 
agreed  that  they  would  choose  as  the  fifth  Justice, 
David  Davis,  who  had  once  been  a  Republican,  but 
who  had  wavered  in  the  faith;  but  at  the  last  minute, 
just  before  the  bill  was  laid  before  the  House,  word 
came  from  Illinois,  where  the  Legislature  had  been 
for  weeks  in  deadlock  over  a  second  term  for  Logan 
in  the  Senate,  that  the  Democrats  had  joined  the 
independents  and  elected  Davis.  Thus  he  was  barred. 
The  four  Justices  selected  Bradley  in  his  stead,  a 
jurist  with  a  delicate  sense  of  honor,  and  of  singu 
larly  fine  grain. 

The  Senate  chose  as  members  of  the  Commission 
Edmunds,  Morton,  Frelinghuysen,  Thurman,  and 
Bayard;  the  House,  Payne,  Hunton,  Abbott,  Hoar, 
and  Garfield.  When  the  joint  session  met  on  Febru 
ary  1,  all  went  smoothly  till  Florida  was  reached, 
with  three  certificates,  and  on  objection  that  case 
went  to  the  Electoral  Commission  which  held  its  ses 
sions  in  the  room  of  the  Supreme  Court.  Here  was 
to  be  a  precedent  for  all  the  other  cases.  Could  the 
Commission  go  back  of  the  returns?  After  a  week  of 
arguments  and  secret  sessions,  the  Commission  held 


514  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

that  it  could  not.  The  interest  in  Bradley's  opinion 
was  intense.  Later  he  wrote  that  it  "expressed  the 
honest  conclusion  to  which  I  had  arrived,  and  which, 
after  a  full  consideration  of  the  whole  matter,  seemed 
to  me  the  only  satisfactory  conclusion  of  the  ques 
tion."  "It  seems  to  me,"  he  said,  "that  the  two 
Houses  of  Congress,  in  proceeding  with  the  count, 
are  bound  to  recognize  the  determination  of  the  State 
Board  of  Canvassers  as  the  act  of  the  State  and  as 
the  most  authentic  evidence  of  the  appointment 
made  by  the  State;  and  that  while  they  may  go  be 
hind  the  Governor's  certificate,  if  necessary,  they  can 
only  do  so  for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  whether 
he  has  truly  certified  the  results  to  which  the  board 
arrived.  They  cannot  sit  as  a  court  of  appeals  on 
the  action  of  that  board." 

The  decision  of  the  Commission  was  reported  to 
the  joint  session.  The  Senate  retired  to  its  chamber 
and  ratified  the  decision;  the  House  refused  ratifica 
tion,  and  by  the  terms  of  the  act  creating  the  Com 
mission,  the  two  Houses  not  having  concurred  in 
overthrowing  its  decision,  the  decision  stood.  There 
were  similar  proceedings  with  regard  to  Louisiana, 
Oregon,  and  South  Carolina.  The  Democrats  be 
came  more  angry,  as  the  count  progressed  from 
day  to  day.  They  were  convinced  that  they  were 
being  swindled  out  of  what  was  fairly  theirs,  and 


THE   DISPUTED   ELECTION   OF   1876     515 

blindly  reaching  for  a  victim  of  their  wrath,  they  hit 
on  Justice  Bradley  and  rained  denunciation  on  his 
head.  For  a  time  he  was  the  most  detested  man  in 
the  United  States.  One  would  have  thought  that  he 
had  sought  this  opportunity  to  perpetrate  a  fraud, 
instead  of  shrinking  from  the  lot  that  fell  to  him.  No 
graver  instance  of  injustice  could  have  been  con 
ceived.  The  cabalistic  number  8  to  7  was  bandied 
back  and  forth  and  Bradley's  name  became  a  byword 
and  reproach. 

Yet  Bradley  was  merely  one  of  a  tribunal.  There 
was  no  better  reason  for  upbraiding  him  than  for 
denouncing  Strong  and  Miller,  his  associates.  He 
was  not  chosen  as  the  umpire;  he  was  an  individual 
member  of  the  Commission  clothed  with  the  same 
responsibility  as  the  rest  —  a  responsibility  which  he 
had  looked  forward  to  with  dread.  Besides,  there  is 
good  ground  for  the  belief  that  Davis  would  have 
done  as  he  did  in  his  place.1 

Sixty  Democratic  Representatives,  most  of  them 
from  the  North  and  West,  tried  by  a  filibuster  to  delay 

1  "  The  day  after  the  inauguration  of  Hayes,  my  kinsman  Stan 
ley  Matthews  said  to  me,  '  You  people  wanted  Judge  Davis.  So 
did  we.  I  will  tell  you  what  I  know,  that  Judge  Davis  was  safe  for 
us  as  Judge  Bradley.  We  preferred  him  because  he  carried  more 
weight.'  The  subsequent  career  of  Judge  Davis  in  the  Senate 
gives  conclusive  proof  that  this  was  true."  (Henry  Watterson, 
"  The  Hayes-Tilden  Contest  for  the  Presidency,"  in  the  Century 
for  May,  1913.) 


516  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

the  count  until  March  4,  when  Congress  would  expire 
by  limitation,  leaving  the  Presidency  hanging  in  the 
air.  But  as  soon  as  the  Florida  decision  foreshadowed 
the  result,  42  Southern  Democrats  "solemnly  pledged 
themselves  to  each  other  upon  their  sacred  honor  to 
oppose  all  attempts  to  frustrate  the  counting  of  the 
votes  for  President."  Speaker  Randall,  with  patriotic 
firmness,  held  the  House  in  hand  till,  at  the  close  of 
an  all-night  session,  at  four  o'clock  in  the  morning  of 
March  2,  the  count  was  finished  and  the  President 
'pro  tempore  declared  Hayes  elected. 

The  4th  of  March  was  Sunday,  and  to  save  further 
complications  Hayes  was  quietly  sworn  in  that  day 
by  Chief  Justice  Waite,  with  Grant  and  Fish  as  wit 
nesses.  On  Monday  he  was  formally  inaugurated  as 
peacefully  as  though  there  had  been  no  controversy. 
Grant  rode  to  the  Capitol  by  his  side. 

There  is  no  doubt  the  country  as  a  whole  believed 
that  Tilden  should  have  been  declared  elected;  the 
question  will  always  be  open  to  dispute.  The  North 
had  tired  of  talk  about  intimidation  in  the  South  and 
were  beginning  to  lose  all  interest  in  the  negro  now 
that  it  was  found  that  he  could  not  exercise  without 
support  the  right  of  suffrage  which  had  been  imposed 
upon  him.  The  violence  and  fraud  in  the  back  par 
ishes  of  Louisiana  were  only  vaguely  pictured  in  the 
public  consciousness,  while  the  fact  of  throwing  out 


THE    DISPUTED   ELECTION   OF    1876     517 

13,000  Democratic  votes  by  the  returning  board  was 
obvious  to  all.  There  is  no  reasonable  doubt  that,  with 
a  fair  election,  more  Southern  States  than  those  fi 
nally  accorded  him  would  have  been  carried  for  Hayes, 
and  it  is  not  forgotten  that  the  South,  by  reason  of 
increased  representation  due  to  the  suppressed  negro 
vote,  had  35  votes  in  the  Electoral  College  with  which 
to  overcome  Republican  majorities  in  Northern 
States.  There  was  great  clamor  at  the  time  and  for 
years  after  about  a  "stolen  Presidency,"  and  Hayes 
is  thought  by  many  fair-minded  men  to-day  to  have 
been  a  fraudulent  incumbent;  but  with  strict  accu 
racy  it  must  be  said  that  he  was  legally  elected.  If 
there  was  "stealing,"  it  was  not  in  Washington.  If 
the  Electoral  Commission,  for  which  the  Democrats 
were  willing  at  the  time  of  its  creation  to  accept  re 
sponsibility,  by  its  decision  made  it  possible  for  Con 
gress  to  count  the  contesting  Democratic  electors, 
there  would  have  been  no  talk  of  fraud.  Yet  there  is 
no  fair  ground  for  saying  that  the  minority  of  the 
Commission  were  right,  and  the  majority  wrong.  It 
happened  that  all  voted  along  party  lines.  If  there 
was  "stealing,"  it  must  have  been  in  Florida  and 
Louisiana,  and  in  the  multitude  of  testimony  it  will 
always  remain  a  question  there  as  to  who  commit 
ted  the  first  theft. 

Before  the  count  of  electoral  votes  had  been  com- 


518  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

pleted,  Ohio  friends  of  Hayes,  perhaps  without  his 
knowledge,  had  told  Southern  Democrats  that  after 
his  nomination  he  would  not  continue  military  inter 
vention  in  the  South,  but  this  assurance  had  no  bear 
ing  on  the  ultimate  result. l  Hayes  had  hardly  taken 
his  seat  before  he  sent  for  Chamberlain  and  Wade 
Hampton,  who  had  set  up  rival  governments  in  South 
Carolina,  and  with  the  consent  of  both  withdrew  the 
federal  troops  from  the  state  capital,  leaving  the 
Hampton  Government  in  control. 

In  Louisiana,  where  Packard  and  Nicholls  were  still 
contesting  the  governorship  and  where  Packard  had 
made  a  better  showing  in  the  returns  than  Hayes,  the 
troops  were  also  withdrawn,  and  the  Nicholls  Govern 
ment,  representing  white  supremacy,  assumed  con 
trol  of  state  affairs.  Grant,  just  before  he  went  out  of 
office,  had  been  appealed  to  by  the  Packard  Gov 
ernment,  but  had  replied  that  public  opinion  in  the 
North  would  no  longer  tolerate  military  interference.2 

1  The  Wormley  Conference. 

2  EXECUTIVE  MANSION, 
WASHINGTON,  D.C.,  March  1,  1877. 

To  Gov.  S.  B.  Packard, 

New  Orleans,  La.:  — 

In  answer  to  your  dispatch  of  this  date,  the  President  directs  me 
to  say  that  he  feels  it  his  duty  to  state  frankly  that  he  dees  not 
believe  public  opinion  will  longer  support  the  maintenance  of  the 
State  Government  in  Louisiana  by  the  use  of  the  military,  and 
that  he  must  concur  in  this  manifest  feeling.  The  troops  will 
hereafter,  as  in  the  past,  protect  life  and  property  from  mob  vio- 


THE   DISPUTED    ELECTION    OF    1876     519 

The  time  had  manifestly  come  for  the  new  order  in 
the  South,  which  has  ever  since  prevailed. 

Grant's  attitude  throughout  this  time  of  general 
upheaval  had  been  a  powerful  factor  in  preserving 
peace,  and  helping  a  harmonious  solution.  To  him  is 
due  a  great  share  of  credit  for  creating  the  Electoral 
Commission  and  assuring  acquiescence  in  the  result.1 

lence  when  the  State  authorities  fail,  but  during  the  remaining 
days  of  his  official  life  they  will  not  be  used  to  establish  or  to  pull 
down  either  claimant  for  control  of  the  State.  It  is  not  his  purpose 
to  recognize  either  claimant. 

C.  C.  SNIFFEN,  Secretary. 

1  George  W.  Childs  tells  in  his  recollections  how  Grant  sent  for 
him  in  Washington  and  said:  "I  have  spoken  of  an  Electoral 
Commission,  and  the  leaders  of  the  party  are  opposed  to  it,  which 
I  am  sorry  to  see.  They  say  that  if  an  Electoral  Commission  is 
appointed  you  might  as  well  count  ii.i  Mr.  Tilden.  I  would 
sooner  have  Mr.  Tilden  than  that  the  Republicans  should  have 
a  President  who  could  be  stigmatized  as  a  fraud.  If  I  were  Mr. 
Hayes  I  would  not  have  it  unless  it  was  settled  in  some  way  out 
side  the  Senate.  This  matter  is  opposed  by  the  leading  Republicans 
in  the  House  and  Senate  and  throughout  the  country."  ...  I 
named  a  leading  Democrat  in  the  House,  .  .  .  whom  it  would  be 
well  for  General  Grant  to  see  in  the  matter,  and  the  suggestion 
was  acted  on.  I  sent  for  this  gentleman  to  come  to  the  White 
House,  and  put  the  dilemma  to  him  in  President  Grant's  name.  .  .  . 

The  answer  at  once  was  that  the  Democrats  would  favor  it,  and 
it  was.  through  that  gentleman  and  General  Grant  that  the  matter 
was  carried  through.  He  sent  for  Mr.  Conkling  and  said,  with 
deep  earnestness:  "This  matter  is  a  serious  one,  and  the  people 
feel  it  very  deeply.  1  think  this  Electoral  Commission  ought  to 
be  appointed."  Conkling  answered:  "Mr.  President,  Senator 
Morton  (who  was  then  the  acknowledged  leader  of  the  Senate) 
is  opposed  to  it  and  opposed  to  your  efforts;  but  if  you  wish  the 
Commission  carried  I  can  do  it."  He  said:  "I  wish  it  done." 
Mr.  Conkling  took  hold  of  the  matter  and  put  it  through.  The 


520  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

"Nothing  could  have  been  wiser  than  the  Electoral 
Commission,"  he  said  a  little  later,  "and  nothing 
could  be  more  unpatriotic  than  the  attempt  to  impair 
the  title  of  Mr.  Hayes  as  fraudulent.  There  was  a 
good  deal  of  cowardice  and  knavery  in  that  effort. 
Mr.  Hayes  is  just  as  much  President  as  any  of  his 
predecessors.  ...  I  never  believed  there  would  be  a 
blow,  but  I  had  so  many  warnings  that  I  made  all  my 
preparations.  ...  I  was  quite  prepared  for  any  con 
tingency.  Any  outbreak  would  have  been  suddenly 
and  summarily  stopped.  ...  If  Tilden  was  declared 
elected,  I  intended  to  hand  him  over  the  reins,  and 
see  him  peacefully  installed.  ...  I  would  not  have 
raised  my  finger  to  have  put  Hayes  in,  if  in  so  doing  I 
did  Tilden  the  slightest  injustice.  All  I  wanted  was  for 
the  legal  powers  to  declare  a  President,  to  keep  the 
machine  running,  allay  the  passions  of  the  canvass, 
and  allow  the  country  peace.  ...  I  felt,  personally, 
that  I  had  been  vouchsafed  a  special  deliverance.  It 
was  a  great  blessing  to  the  country.  .  . .  We  had  peace, 
and  order,  and  observance  of  the  law,  and  the  world 
had  a  new  illustration  of  the  dignity  and  efficiency  of 
the  Republic.  This  we  owe  to  the  wisdom  and  fore 
sight  of  the  men  who  formed  the  Electoral  Commis 
sion,  Democrats  as  well  as  Republicans.'* 

leading  Democrat  I  have  spoken  of  took  the  initiative  in  the 
House  and  Mr.  Conkling  in  the  Senate. 


CHAPTER  XLV 
THE  ADMINISTRATION  IN  REVIEW 

DIVESTED  of  his  rank  and  office,  Grant  found  him 
self  once  more  the  looming  figure  of  the  time,  as  he 
had  been  directly  after  Appomattox.  The  venom  of 
attack  was  dissipated  with  the  disappearance  of  offi 
cial  power.  There  was  a  quick  rebound  in  public 
sentiment  as  often  happens  with  a  people  jealous 
of  those  on  whom  they  have  conferred  supreme  au 
thority.  There  was  no  more  talk  of  Csesarism,  nepo 
tism,  or  corruption.  The  folly  of  the  first  was  obvious 
now  that  the  "Caesar"  pictured  by  the  party  press 
was  a  plain  citizen  seemingly  thankful  to  return  to 
private  life;  the  silliness  of  the  attacks  on  nepotism 
was  manifest  now  that  the  little  flock  of  office-holding 
relatives  found  their  petty  titles  and  emoluments  at 
the  disposal  of  a  President  on  whom  they  had  no 
claim;  as  for  corruption  and  gift-taking,  here  was 
Grant  at  the  close  of  sixteen  years  of  service  in  such 
financial  straits  that  he  was  puzzled  how  to  get  along. 
True,  he  had  houses  presented  by  the  people,  but 
they  were  not  endowed,  and  in  them  he  could  not 
afford  to  live;  he  had  a  farm  at  Gravois,  near  St. 
Louis,  the  site  of  the  Dent  homestead,  on  which  he 


522  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

had  spent  borrowed  money  and  which  had  never 
paid;  he  had  used  up  his  salary  while  President,  and 
though  he  had  a  little  income  from  investments,  he 
would  have  been  far  better  off  if  he  had  spent  the 
sixteen  years  in  trade.  Those  who  had  been  most 
virulent  in  their  attacks  upon  him  for  eight  years  now 
felt  that  they  had  done  him  wrong.  He  was  again 
the  idol  of  his  countrymen,  who  at  last  could  com 
prehend  the  merits  of  an  administration,  thrown  in 
the  shadow  for  a  time  by  superficial  faults.  They 
realized  how  they  had  leaned  on  him  during  the 
months  when  the  succession  was  in  doubt,  and  it 
began  to  dawn  upon  them  that  the  United  States 
during  his  term  as  President  had  held  high  rank,  that 
there  had  never  been  a  period  in  our  history  when  an 
American  citizen  could  count  so  surely  on  world 
wide  respect,  and  that  we  now  stood  higher  in  the 
world's  regard  than  at  any  other  moment  since  the 
Government  began. 

No  President  ever  had  a  firmer  or  more  consistent 
foreign  policy  than  Grant.  Fish  is  entitled  to  all  the 
credit  which  belongs  to  him  and  which  Grant  himself 
was  always  generous  to  bestow,  but  Fish  alone  could 
not  have  carried  through  the  diplomatic  triumphs 
which  shed  on  Grant's  Administration  their  resplend 
ency.  Fish  was  far-seeing,  firm,  and  sensible,  but  he 
would  have  been  quite  futile  without  Grant.  It  was 


THE   ADMINISTRATION   IN   REVIEW     523 

the  steady  backing  of  the  White  House  that  made  it 
possible  for  Fish  to  carry  through  his  foreign  policy, 
and  in  most  instances  the  programme  was  as  truly 
Grant's  as  his. 

A  case  in  point  is  the  Virginius  incident  early  in 
the  second  term,  which  might  have  brought  on  war 
with  Spain  if  badly  managed,  but  which  was  handled 
with  such  firmness  and  discretion  that  without  war 
we  won  in  our  contention  and  held  our  national  re 
spect.  The  Virginius  was  an  American-built  steamer 
which  for  some  years  had  been  employed  at  intervals 
in  landing  military  expeditions  to  aid  the  Cuban 
insurrection.  On  October  31,  1873,  while  bound 
from  Kingston  in  Jamaica  to  a  Cuban  port,  flying 
our  flag  but  carrying  war  material,  it  was  captured 
by  a  Spanish  man-of-war  and  taken  into  Santiago. 
She  had  on  board  one  hundred  and  fifty-five  passen 
gers  and  crew,  most  of  them  Cubans  planning  to  join 
the  insurrection,  but  some  of  them  citizens  of  the 
United  States.  Early  in  November  fifty-three  of  the 
passengers  and  crew  were  sentenced  by  court  martial 
and  shot,  among  them  eight  of  our  citizens.  "If  it 
prove  that  an  American  citizen  has  been  wrongfully 
executed,  this  Government  will  require  most  ample 
reparation,"  Fish  promptly  cabled  Sickles,  our  Min 
ister  to  Spain.  Castelar,  the  Spanish  President,  at 
once  and  no  doubt  with  sincerity  expressed  regret. 


524  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

The  country  was  ablaze  with  wrath.  The  press  de 
manded  swift  revenge.  Mass  meetings  heard  hot 
speeches.  Fish  was  too  slow.  The  people  east  of  the 
Missouri  were  for  immediate  hostilities.  War  seemed 
at  hand. 

But  Fish,  sustained  by  Grant,  proceeded  cau 
tiously.  He  was  not  swept  off  his  feet  by  clamor,  but 
he  had  lost  no  time  in  stating  our  position  and  he  did 
not  now  dally  with  well-phrased  diplomatic  notes. 
"Unless  abundant  reparation  shall  have  been  vol 
untarily  tendered,"  he  cabled  Sickles  on  November 
14,  "you  will  demand  the  restoration  of  the  Virginius 
and  the  release  and  delivery  to  the  United  States  of 
the  persons  captured  on  her  who  have  not  yet  been 
massacred,  and  that  the  flag  of  the  United  States 
be  saluted  in  the  port  of  Santiago  and  the  signal  pun 
ishment  of  the  officials  who  were  concerned  in  the 
capture  of  the  vessel  and  the  execution  of  the  pas 
sengers  and  crew.  In  case  of  refusal  of  satisfactory 
reparation,  written  twelve  days  from  this  date,  you 
will  .  .  .  close  your  legation  and  leave  Madrid." 

Feeling  ran  high  in  Madrid  as  well  as  in  the  United 
States,  and  Sickles  was  at  times  hysterical,  but  Grant 
and  Fish  retained  their  poise.  Fish  took  the  business 
up  in  Washington  with  Polo,  the  Spanish  Minister, 
and  these  two  reached  a  satisfactory  agreement. 
The  Virginius  and  her  survivors  were  to  be  restored 


THE   ADMINISTRATION   IN   REVIEW     525 

immediately.  Spain  was  to  have  an  opportunity  to 
prove  that  the  Virginius  at  the  time  of  capture  was 
not  entitled  to  fly  our  colors,  and  if  unable  to  prove 
this  before  December  25,  she  must  salute  our  flag. 
Officials  guilty  of  illegal  acts  of  violence  toward  citi 
zens  of  the  United  States  were  to  be  punished. 

On  December  18,  the  Virginius,  flying  our  flag,  was 
delivered  to  our  navy  at  Bahia  Honda  in  Cuba,  but 
while  on  her  way  to  New  York  sank  in  a  storm.  Two 
days  later  the  surviving  prisoners  were  surrendered 
and  reached  New  York  in  safety.  Investigation 
showed  that  the  Virginius  when  captured  was  im 
properly  carrying  the  American  flag  and  conse 
quently  there  was  no  salute.  In  the  hands  of  Grant 
and  Fish  the  whole  affair  was  handled  with  dignity 
and  self-respect.  Pending  negotiations,  Grant  put 
the  navy  on  a  war  footing,  "trusting  to  Congress  and 
the  public  opinion  of  the  American  people  to  justify 
my  action."1 

"I  would  sum  up  the  policy  of  the  Administra 
tion,"  Grant  had  said  in  his  second  annual  message, 
"to  be  a  thorough  enforcement  of  every  law;  a  faith 
ful  collection  of  every  tax  provided  for;  economy  in 
the  disbursement  of  the  same;  a  prompt  payment  of 
every  debt  of  the  nation;  a  reduction  of  taxes  as  rap 
idly  as  the  requirements  of  the  country  will  admit; 
1  Richardson,  Messages  and  Papers,  vol.  vn,  p.  242. 


526  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

reductions  of  taxation  and  tariff  to  be  so  arranged 
as  to  afford  the  greatest  relief  to  the  greatest  number; 
honest  and  fair  dealings  with  all  other  peoples,  to  the 
end  that  war  with  all  its  blighting  consequences  may 
be  avoided,  but  without  surrendering  any  right  or 
obligation  due  to  us;  a  reform  in  the  treatment  of 
Indians  and  in  the  whole  civil  service  of  the  country ; 
and  finally,  in  securing  a  pure,  untrammeled  ballot, 
where  every  man  entitled  to  cast  a  vote  may  do  so 
just  once  at  each  election,  without  fear  of  molesta 
tion  or  proscription  on  account  of  his  political  faith, 
nationality,  or  color." 

And  at  the  beginning  of  his  second  term  he  thus 
outlined  his  purposes  in  his  inaugural:  "My  efforts 
in  the  future  will  be  directed  to  the  restoration  of 
good  feeling  between  the  different  sections  of  our 
common  country;  to  the  restoration  of  our  currency 
to  a  fixed  value  as  compared  with  the  world's  stand 
ard  of  value  —  gold  —  and,  if  possible  to  a  par  with 
it;  to  the  construction  of  cheap  routes  of  transit 
throughout  the  land;  to  the  end  that  the  products  of 
all  may  find  a  market  and  leave  a  living  remunera 
tion  to  the  producer;  to  the  maintenance  of  friendly 
relations  with  all  our  neighbors,  and  with  distant 
nations ;  to  the  reestablishment  of  our  commerce  and 
share  in  the  carrying  trade  upon  the  ocean;  to  the 
encouragement  of  such  manufacturing  industries  as 


THE   ADMINISTRATION   IN   REVIEW     527 

can  be  economically  pursued  in  this  country  to  the 
end  that  the  exports  of  home  products  and  industries 
may  pay  for  our  imports  —  the  only  sure  method  of 
returning  to  and  maintaining  a  specie  basis;  to  the 
elevation  of  labor;  and  by  a  humane  course  to  bring 
the  aborigines  of  the  country  under  the  benign  influ 
ences  of  education  and  civilization." 

No  programme  was  ever  more  faithfully  carried 
out  by  any  President.  We  have  seen  how  firmly  he 
upheld  American  rights  abroad;  how  he  was  first  in 
history  to  establish  arbitration  in  the  settlement  of 
international  disputes;  how  he  stood  for  the  Monroe 
Doctrine  in  all  his  dealings  with  other  American 
Republics.  He  was  equally  firm  with  Mexico,  with 
Spain,  with  France,  with  England,  respecting  no  dis 
tinction  between  weak  and  powerful  governments 
when  national  dignity  was  involved.  He  demanded 
the  recall  of  Catacazy,  the  Russian  Minister,  who 
had  abused  American  officials  and  had  interfered 
obnoxiously  in  the  relations  between  the  United 
States  and  other  powers.  "It  was  impossible,"  he 
said  to  Congress,  "with  self-respect  or  with  a  just 
regard  to  the  dignity  of  the  country,  to  permit  Mr. 
Catacazy  to  continue  to  hold  intercourse  with  this 
Government."  He  settled  boundary  disputes  with 
Great  Britain,  and  claims  with  the  American  Repub 
lics,  took  up  with  Spain  and  England  questions  of 


528  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

extradition,  securing  from  Spain  the  extradition  of 
"Boss"  Tweed  who  had  escaped  to  Cuba;  would 
have  taken  over  San  Domingo  while  the  time  was 
ripe;  maintained  peace  with  all  the  world  amid  grave 
international  problems,  yet  never  thought  to  make 
a  sanctimonious  merit  of  having  kept  the  country 
out  of  war. 

Congress  interfered  with  his  ambition  to  establish 
firmly  a  reformed  civil  service,  but  he  gave  reform 
an  impetus  which  has  continued  to  this  day.  He  en 
forced  the  laws,  maintained  economy  in  government 
expenditures,  lowered  taxes,  and  reduced  the  na 
tional  debt.  That  he  could  not  secure  a  pure,  un- 
trammeled  ballot  was  not  his  fault.  He  tried;  but 
here  he  ran  against  impossible  conditions  which  no 
Executive  could  hope  to  overcome. 

He  urged  in  every  way  the  building-up  of  an 
American  merchant  marine.  "It  is  a  national  humili 
ation,"  he  said,  "that  we  are  now  compelled  to  pay 
from  twenty  to  thirty  million  dollars  annually  .  .  . 
to  foreigners  for  doing  the  work  which  should  be 
done  by  American  vessels,  American-built,  Ameri 
can-owned,  and  American-manned."1 

"A  revival  of  shipbuilding,  and  particularly  of 
iron  steamship  building,"  he  said  again,  —  for  he 
kept  returning  to  this  theme,  —  "is  of  vast  impor- 
1  Richardson,  Messages  and  Papers,  vol.  vn,  p.  53. 


THE   ADMINISTRATION   IN   REVIEW     529 

tance  to  our  national  prosperity.  ...  I  would  be  will 
ing  to  see  a  great  departure  from  the  usual  course  of 
Government  in  supporting  what  might  usually  be 
termed  private  enterprise.  I  would  not  suggest  as  a 
remedy  direct  subsidy  to  American  steamship  lines, 
but  would  suggest  the  direct  offer  of  ample  com 
pensation  for  carrying  the  mails  between  Atlantic 
seaboard  cities  and  would  extend  this  liberality  to 
vessels  carrying  the  mails  to  South  American  States 
and  to  Central  America  and  Mexico,  and  would  pur 
sue  the  same  policy  from  our  Pacific  seaports  to  for 
eign  seaports  on  the  Pacific.  .  .  ."* 

He  was  the  first  President  to  call  emphatic  atten 
tion  to  the  peril  of  an  ignorant  foreign-born  elector 
ate,  lacking  in  knowledge  of  the  significance  of  our 
institutions.  "The  compulsory  support  of  the  free 
school  and  the  disfranchisement  of  all  who  cannot 
read  and  write  the  English  language,  after  a  fixed 
probation,  would  meet  my  hearty  approval.  .  .  . 
Foreigners  coming  to  this  country  to  become  citizens, 
who  are  educated  in  their  own  language,  should  ac 
quire  the  requisite  knowledge  of  ours  during  the  nec 
essary  residence  to  obtain  naturalization.  If  they  did 
not  take  interest  enough  in  our  language  to  acquire 
sufficient  knowledge  of  it  to  enable  them  to  study  the 
institutions  and  laws  of  the  country  intelligently,  I 
1  Richardson,  Messages  and  Papers,  vol.  vn,  pp.  301-02. 


530  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

would  not  confer  upon  them  the  right  to  make  such 
laws  or  to  select  those  who  do."  l 

He  suggested  a  readjustment  of  the  tariff  "so  as  to 
increase  the  revenue,  and  at  the  same  time  decrease 
the  number  of  articles  upon  which  duties  are  levied. 
Those  articles  which  enter  into  our  manufactures  and 
are  not  produced  at  home,  it  seems  to  me,  should  be 
entered  free.  Those  articles  of  manufacture  which  we 
produce  a  constituent  part  of,  but  do  not  produce  the 
whole,  that  part  which  we  do  not  produce  should 
enter  free  also."  2 

When  Grant  entered  on  the  Presidency,  to  use  his 
own  words  "the  country  was  laboring  under  an  enor 
mous  debt  contracted  in  the  suppression  of  the  rebel 
lion;  and  taxation  was  so  oppressive  as  to  discourage 
production."  There  was  danger  of  a  foreign  war. 
Not  only  was  the  war  averted  by  the  Treaty  of  Wash 
ington,  establishing  the  principle  of  arbitration,  but 
in  the  first  seven  years  of  his  Administration  taxes 
were  reduced  by  nearly  $300,000,000,  and  the  na 
tional  debt  by  $435,000,000.  By  refunding  opera 
tions  the  annual  interest  on  the  debt  was  reduced 
from  $130,000,000  to  $100,000,000,  an  adverse  bal 
ance  of  trade  amounting  to  $130,000,000  was  trans 
ferred  to  a  balance  of  $120,000,000  in  our  favor. 

1  Richardson,  Messages  and  Papers,  vol.  vu,  p.  411. 

2  Ibid.,  pp.  293-94. 


THE   ADMINISTRATION   IN   REVIEW     531 

Provision  had  been  made  for  the  resumption  of  specie 
payments  and  inflation,  which  was  rampant,  had 
been  dealt  a  deadly  blow. 

For  one  who  entered  on  his  service  with  no  politi 
cal  experience  whatever,  who  was  a  stranger  to  the 
ways  of  statecraft  and  diplomacy,  Grant's  Presi 
dency  presents  a  record  of  success  almost  as  striking 
though  less  dramatic  than  his  career  in  war.  His 
messages,  from  which  citations  have  been  made, 
were  mostly  written  with  his  own  hand,  and  he  was 
always  in  close  touch  with  the  innumerable  impor 
tant  questions  in  which  the  various  members  of  his 
Cabinet  were  immediately  concerned. 

Considering  all  these  things  there  is  a  needless  note 
of  pathos  in  the  personal  reference  which  he  incor 
porated  in  his  last  message  in  December,  1876 :  — 

"  It  was  my  fortune,  or  misfortune,  to  be  called  to 
the  office  of  Chief  Executive  without  any  previous 
political  training.  From  the  age  of  seventeen  I  had 
never  even  witnessed  the  excitement  attending  a 
presidential  campaign  but  twice  antecedent  to  my 
own  candidacy,  and  at  but  one  of  them  was  I  eligible 
as  a  voter. 

"  Under  such  circumstances  it  is  but  reasonable  to 
suppose  that  errors  of  judgment  must  have  occurred. 
Even  had  they  not,  differences  of  opinion  between 
the  Executive,  bound  by  an  oath  to  the  strict  per- 


532  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

formance  of  his  duties,  and  writers  and  debaters, 
must  have  arisen.  It  is  not  necessarily  evidence  of 
blunder  on  the  part  of  the  Executive  because  there  are 
these  differences  of  views.  Mistakes  have  been  made, 
as  all  can  see,  and  I  admit,  but  it  seems  to  me  oftener 
in  the  selections  made  in  the  assistants  appointed  to 
aid  in  carrying  out  the  various  duties  of  administer 
ing  the  government  —  in  nearly  every  case  selected 
without  a  personal  acquaintance  with  the  appointee, 
but  upon  recommendation  of  the  representatives 
chosen  directly  by  the  people.  It  is  impossible,  where 
so  many  trusts  are  to  be  allotted,  that  the  right  par 
ties  should  be  chosen  in  every  instance.  History 
shows  that  no  Administration  from  the  time  of 
Washington  to  the  present  has  been  free  from  these 
mistakes.  But  I  leave  comparisons  to  history,  claim 
ing  only  that  I  have  acted  in  every  instance  from  a 
conscientious  desire  to  do  what  was  right,  constitu 
tional,  within  the  law,  and  for  the  very  best  interests 
of  the  whole  people.  Failures  have  been  errors  of 
judgment,  not  of  intent."  1 

In  constructive  achievements,  coming  as  it  did 
directly  after  the  demoralization  of  the  war  and  the 
upset  of  traditions  due  to  Lincoln's  military  measures 
in  that  imperative  emergency,  Grant's  Administra 
tion  ranks  second  only  to  that  of  Washington,  who 
1  Richardson,  Messages  and  Papers,  vol.  vu,  pp.  399-400. 


THE   ADMINISTRATION   IN   REVIEW     533 

had  to  set  the  Government  in  motion  under  the  Con 
stitution.  He  might  safely  "leave  comparisons  to 
history."  If  we  except  the  baneful  Southern  problem 
which  was  bequeathed  to  him,  and  where  his  fault,  if 
fault  there  was,  lay  in  the  rigid  execution  of  the  law,  it 
would  be  hard  to  place  the  finger  now  on  an  execu 
tive  policy  approved  by  him  which  subsequent  ex 
perience  has  condemned. 


CHAPTER  XLVI 

THE  TRIP  AROUND  THE  WORLD  — THE  THIRD 
TERM 

A  FEW  weeks  of  adulation  and  then  Grant  went 
abroad.  He  sailed  from  Philadelphia  in  middle  May. 
His  daughter  Nellie,  who  had  married  Algernon 
Sartoris  in  the  White  House,  was  living  in  her  hus 
band's  home  in  England.  Beyond  seeing  her  he  had 
few  plans. 

Great  crowds  bade  him  good-bye  in  Philadelphia, 
thronging  the  wharves  from  which  he  sailed  with 
Mrs.  Grant  and  Jesse,  his  youngest  boy.  To  his 
amazement  even  greater  crowds  were  at  the  wharves 
in  Liverpool.  Ten  thousand  Englishmen  pushed 
through  the  custom  house  to  welcome  him.  He  was 
presented  with  the  freedom  of  the  city,  both  at 
Liverpool  and  Manchester,  and  his  run  toward 
London  wa.s  like  a  triumph.  In  London  the  experi 
ence  was  repeated.  English  tradespeople  and  work- 
ingmen  held  him  in  higher  honor  than  he  thought. 
To  them  he  was  the  world's  most  famous  living 
general,  personifying  in  their  eyes  the  marvel  of 
democracy. 

Shortly,  the  scions  of  nobility  took  him  in  hand. 


THE   TRIP   AROUND   THE   WORLD        535 

When  Fillmore  and  Van  Buren  were  visitors  in  Eng 
land  they  had  little  more  attention  than  any  other 
private  citizen  and  trudged  along  complacently  at 
the  tail  end  of  the  line,  but  Grant,  through  some  di 
plomacy  by  our  Minister  in  London,  was  treated  as  a 
former  sovereign  —  not  that  he  cared  for  it  especially, 
but  Pierre  pont  felt  that  as  a  former  President  of  the 
United  States  he  must  not  be  slighted.  Whatever 
those  at  home  might  think  about  it,  the  Englishman 
familiar  with  court  etiquette  would  size  it  up  as  an 
indignity,  not  alone  to  Grant,  but  to  the  country 
whence  he  hailed. 

Aside  from  minor  incidents  the  pleasure  of  the 
English  visit  was  undimmed  and  the  example  of  the 
London  court  followed  Grant  around  the  world.  He 
visited  every  capital  of  Europe  and  almost  every  im 
portant  town.  He  talked  with  Bismarck  and  Von 
Moltke  in  Germany,  with  Gambetta  and  MacMahon 
in  France,  with  Gortchakoff  in  Russia,  with  Castelar 
in  Spain,  with  kings  and  queens  and  emperors,  the 
Czar,  the  Pope.  In  almost  every  capital  he  was 
asked  to  witness  a  review  of  troops  and  he  invariably 
declined.  To  the  Crown  Prince  of  Germany  he  said: 
"The  truth  is  I  am  more  of  a  farmer  than  a  soldier.  I 
take  little  or  no  interest  in  military  affairs.  I  never 
went  into  the  army  without  regret  and  I  never  retired 
without  pleasure."  He  wandered  dumbly  through 


536  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

the  galleries  and  museums,  was  bored  by  paintings, 
sculptures,  and  cathedrals,  but  was  impressed  by  the 
imposing  grandeur  of  the  Alps,  great  engineering 
works,  and  by  the  Pyramids.  He  loved  especially  to 
stroll  the  streets  and  see  the  common  people.  James 
Russell  Lowell,  our  Minister  to  Spain,  who  enter 
tained  him  at  Madrid,  has  left  a  picture  which  may 
apply  to  all  his  wanderings :  — 

"As  he  speaks  nothing  but  English,  he  was  as  in 
communicable  as  an  iceberg  and  I  think  is  rather 
bored  by  peregrination.  What  he  likes  best  is  to 
escape  and  wander  about  the  streets  with  his 
Achates  Young.  After  being  here  two  days  I  think  he 
knew  Madrid  better  than  I.  He  seemed  to  be  very 
single-minded,  honest,  and  sensible  —  very  easy  to  be 
led  by  anybody  he  likes.  He  is  perfectly  unconscious 
and  natural,  naively  puzzled,  I  fancied,  to  find  him 
self  a  personage,  and  going  through  the  ceremonies  to 
which  he  is  condemned  with  a  dogged  imperturba 
bility  that  annotated  to  me  his  career  in  general."  1 

From  Europe  Grant  went  to  Egypt  and  the  Pyra 
mids,  and  then  to  Asia,  visiting  the  Holy  Land,  and 
later  India,  Siam,  China,  and  Japan.  He  was  greatly 
taken  with  the  Orient.  Japan  he  marveled  at.  China 
appealed  to  him.  Li  Hung  Chang,  with  whom  he 

1  To  Charles  Eliot  Norton,  Letters  of  James  Russell  Lowell, 
p.  233. 


THE  TRIP   AROUND   THE   WORLD       537 

talked,  he  rated  among  the  world's  four  master 
minds  in  statecraft  and  diplomacy. 

While  Grant  was  lingering  abroad,  finding  new 
scenes  to  lure  him  on  and  pleased  by  the  atten 
tion  showered  upon  him,  politics  was  shaping  up  at 
home.  Hayes  had  pledged  himself  against  a  second 
term,  and  in  no  event  could  he  have  been  elected  if  he 
had  tried  to  run,  so  general  was  the  feeling  that  his 
title  had  a  taint.  His  course  as  President  had  alien 
ated  the  men  who  had  done  most  to  put  him  in  the 
place.  The  group  which  had  been  influential  under 
Grant  now  found  themselves  of  little  consequence 
with  the  Administration.  Conkling,  Cameron,  Logan, 
and  others  of  the  Stalwart  wing  were  out  of  favor 
and  out  of  sorts,  while  Sherman,  Evarts,  Hoar,  and 
Schurz  had  Hayes's  ear,  and  Southern  Democrats 
were  called  in  council  when  it  came  to  naming  office 
holders  in  the  South.  The  new  Administration  knew 
not  Joseph.  It  was  completely  out  of  sympathy  with 
"the  machine"  and  recognized  few  party  obligations 
of  the  old-fashioned  kind.  Elaine,  who  was  pressing 
forward  as  the  candidate  for  President,  had  not  much 
in  common  either  with  Hayes  or  with  the  Stalwart 
group.  The  Stalwarts  turned  instinctively  toward 
Grant. 

Word  kept  coming  back  about  his  European  prog 
ress,  and  the  tidings  stirred  the  people's  pride,  no 


538  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

matter  what  their  politics;  for  in  Grant's  person  they 
could  see  the  Old  World  paying  honor  to  the  New. 
It  was  soon  clear  that  his  return  would  be  a  sequel 
for  great  popular  acclaim.  The  thing  to  do  was  to 
prevent  his  coming  back  too  soon  so  that  the  impetus 
of  his  reception  might  carry  on  to  the  Republican 
Convention.  He  had  not  been  gone  a  year  when 
the  Stalwarts  began  to  send  him  messages  asking  him 
not  to  hurry  home  and  hinting  at  political  develop 
ments.  He  was  human  and  took  pleasure  in  the 
flattering  hints.  "Most  every  letter  I  get  from  the 
States,  like  Porter's  to  you,  asks  me  to  remain 
abroad,"  he  wrote  from  Rome  to  Badeau  in  March, 
1878.  "They  have  designs  on  me  which  I  do  not 
contemplate  for  myself.  It  is  probable  that  I  shall 
return  to  the  United  States  early  in  the  fall  or  early 
next  spring."  But  he  did  not  return  that  fall.  It  was 
September,  1879,  when  he  sailed  up  the  Golden  Gate, 
and  found  still  greater  crowds  awaiting  him  than  he 
had  seen  at  Philadelphia  or  Liverpool.  He  wandered 
up  and  down  the  coast,  visited  old  haunts  at  Hum- 
boldt  and  Vancouver,  which  his  experience  there,  if 
what  it  has  been  sometimes  pictured,  might  have 
made  him  shun;  then  started  east  across  the  conti 
nent,  arriving  at  Galena  the  day  following  election, 
after  a  sweeping  progress  through  the  cities  of  the 
West.  There  he  was  greeted  by  his  old  neighbors,  and 


THE   THIRD   TERM  539 

after  loafing  with  them  for  a  week,  he  started  east 
again  through  demonstrations  all  along  the  line  from 
crowds  in  cities  numbered  by  the  hundred  thousands, 
at  last  in  Philadelphia  completing  his  circuit  of  the 
world. 

To  Grant  the  country  must  have  seemed  unani 
mous,  but  from  the  politician's  point  of  view  his 
coming  back  was  premature  —  six  months  too  early 
for  their  calculations.  Besides,  neither  Grant  nor  the 
"Old  Guard"  seems  to  have  been  fully  conscious  of 
the  deep-seated  feeling  against  a  third  term  in  the 
Presidency.  The  people's  adoration  could  not  have 
been  transmuted  into  votes.  He  did  nothing  to  en 
courage  or  discourage  what  was  going  on.  He  was 
quite  ready  to  await  results. 

He  went  to  Mexico  and  Cuba  continuing  in  this 
way  his  world  itinerary  —  the  most  widely  traveled 
citizen  of  the  United  States. 

Those  who  engineered  the  Third  Term  plan  were 
daring  and  resourceful  leaders.  In  the  whole  his 
tory  of  our  politics  there  has  never  been  another 
group  to  rival  them  in  intellectual  force,  in  discipline, 
in  ruthlessness,  in  organizing  skill.  We  have  since 
often  had  "Old  Guards"  on  paper  and  in  frenzied 
campaign  cries;  for  "Old  Guards"  are  easy  buga 
boos,  but  most  of  them  have  been  the  creatures  of 
disordered  fancies  or  demagogical  appeal.  The  ele- 


540  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

ments  of  which  they  are  assumed  to  be  composed 
have  seldom  stood  consistently  together  or  wielded 
their  imaginary  power.  But  here  was  an  "Old 
Guard"  in  truth  whose  members  had  no  squeam- 
ishness  about  the  name,  whose  faults  at  least  were 
manly  faults,  and  who  were  strangers  to  hypocrisy. 
Conkling  in  New  York,  Don  Cameron  in  Pennsyl 
vania,  Logan  in  Illinois,  each  at  the  head  of  his  bat 
talions,  formed  a  "Triumvirate"  which  derived  its 
fitting  title  from  Roman  history,  and  like  its  Ro 
man  prototype  was  entitled  to  respect.  They  had 
their  disciplined  allies  in  other  States,  and,  reaching 
into  every  corner  of  the  country,  they  had  their 
pickets  placed. 

In  February,  while  in  Cuba,  Washburne  had  writ 
ten  Grant  about  the  prospects  for  another  nomina 
tion.  The  tone  of  his  reply  showed  that  he  then  ex 
pected  it,  though  he  betrayed  no  great  concern.  "All 
that  I  want  is  that  the  Government  rule  should  re 
main  in  the  hands  of  those  who  saved  the  Union  until 
all  the  questions  growing  out  of  the  war  are  forever 
settled.  I  would  much  rather  any  one  of  many  I 
could  mention  should  be  President  rather  than  that  I 
should  have  it.  ...  I  shall  not  gratify  my  enemies 
by  declining  what  has  not  been  offered.  I  am  not  a 
candidate  for  anything,  and  if  the  Chicago  Conven 
tion  nominates  a  candidate  who  can  be  elected,  it  will 


THE   THIRD   TERM  541 

gratify  me,  and  the  gratification  will  be  greater  if  it 
should  be  some  one  other  than  myself.  .  .  .  Blaine  I 
would  like  to  see  elected,  but  I  fear  the  party  could 
not  elect  him."  l 

Later,  from  Galveston,  on  March  25,  he  wrote 
again  to  Washburne,  who  had  suggested  that  he 
should  authorize  some  one  to  say  that  in  no  event 
would  he  consent  even  to  be  a  candidate  after  1880: 
"I  think  any  statement  from  me  would  be  mis 
construed,  and  would  only  serve  as  a  handle  for  my 
enemies.  Such  a  statement  might  well  be  made  after 
the  nomination,  if  I  am  nominated  in  such  a  way  as  to 
accept.  It  is  a  matter  of  supreme  indifference  to  me 
whether  I  am  or  not.  There  are  many  persons  I  would 
prefer  should  have  the  office  to  myself.  I  owe  so 
much  to  the  Union  men  of  the  country  that  if  they 
think  my  chances  are  better  for  election  than  for 
other  probable  candidates  in  case  I  should  decline,  I 
cannot  decline  if  the  nomination  is  tendered  without 
seeking  on  my  part." 

From  these  expressions  there  could  be  little  ques 
tion  about  his  expectation  that  he  would  be  called  to 
serve  or  about  his  readiness  to  heed  the  call.  Coming 
back  from  Mexico  he  followed  up  the  Mississippi 
from  New  Orleans  to  Cairo,  by  way  of  Vicksburg 
and  Memphis,  tracing  back  the  militant  journey 
1  Letters  to  a  Friend,  Havana,  Cuba,  February  2,  1880. 


542  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

he  had  taken  nearly  twenty  years  before  —  and  at 
last  was  at  Galena,  where  he  awaited  the  conven 
tion,  seemingly  indifferent  himself  about  the  out 
come,  but  acquiescent  in  the  wishes  of  his  family 
and  friends. 

Meantime  the  "Old  Guard"  had  been  diligent. 
They  were  not  too  fastidious  in  their  ways.  They 
rushed  resolutions  through  the  New  York  and  Penn 
sylvania  Conventions  in  February,  imposing  the  unit 
rule  upon  the  delegations  from  those  States.  In 
Illinois  the  State  Convention  elected  Grant  dele 
gates  from  every  district,  ignoring  protests  from  dis 
tricts  whose  representatives  did  not  approve.  Simi 
lar  tactics  prevailed  in  other  States. 

When  the  National  Republican  Convention  met  in 
June,  they  had  three  hundred  delegates  for  Grant  in 
cluding  a  clear  majority  from  New  York,  Illinois,  and 
Pennsylvania,  and  almost  all  the  Southern  and  border 
States.  Blaine  had  fewer  votes  than  Grant,  but  they 
were  well  distributed  throughout  the  North,  while 
Sherman  had,  besides  his  own  State  of  Ohio  nearly 
solid,  a  scattering  support,  including  some  negro 
delegates  in  the  South.  Edmunds,  Windom,  and 
Washburne  each  had  his  friends,  although  no  one  of 
these  was  ever  really  in  the  running. 

As  June  approached,  and  it  was  evident  that  Grant 
could  not  be  named  without  a  bitter  contest,  some  of 


THE   THIRD   TERM  543 

his  intimates,  who  feared  for  the  result  in  case  the 
nomination  came  that  way,  earnestly  begged  him  to 
withdraw,  but  by  that  time  he  had  gone  too  far  and 
could  not  quit  without  embarrassing  his  friends.  His 
family  were  smitten  with  a  longing  to  get  back  to 
Washington,  and  he  acceded  to  their  importunities. 
John  Russell  Young  went  to  Galena  and  with  much 
difficulty,  in  opposition  to  their  wishes,  induced 
Grant  to  write  a  letter  addressed  to  Cameron,  once 
in  his  Cabinet  and  now  chairman  of  the  Republican 
National  Committee,  authorizing  his  supporters  if 
at  any  time  so  minded  to  withdraw  his  name.  No 
copy  of  the  letter  was  preserved  and  it  was  never 
used. 

In  all  the  history  of  conventions  there  has  never 
been  another  such  as  this.  No  gathering  of  any  party 
has  been  so  rich  in  stirring  incident,  so  fertile  in 
dramatic  scenes,  so  pregnant  in  the  tragedy  of  per 
sonal  and  party  feuds.  It  wrecked  ambitions,  opened 
new  careers,  and  brought  about  strange  combinations 
in  the  field  of  politics.  The  Triumvirate  were  beaten 
in  trying  to  impose  the  unit  rule,  which  would  have 
given  Grant  the  solid  vote  of  New  York,  Illinois,  and 
Pennsylvania,  and  with  the  impetus  thus  gained  have 
carried  him  at  once  across  the  line.  They  failed  in 
other  arbitrary  schemes  which  gave  rise  to  many 
hours  of  strategy  and  hot  debate. 


544  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

Conkling  led  their  forces  on  the  floor,  showing 
superb  contempt  for  opposition,  stirring  resentment 
among  friends  of  Elaine  and  other  candidates,  repel 
ling  by  his  domineering  ways  those  whom  another 
would  have  tried  with  tact  to  win,  questioning  their 
party  loyalty,  sneering  at  their  political  consistency, 
exulting  in  their  hate.  No  one  at  all  familiar  with 
convention  records  is  unfamiliar  with  the  speech  in 
which  he  introduced  Grant's  name,  the  opening  lines 
of  doggerel  transmuted  into  eloquence  by  his  auda 
cious,  dominating  personality:  — 

"  And  when  asked  what  State  he  hails  from, 
Our  sole  reply  shall  be, 
He  hails  from  Appomattox 
And  its  famous  apple  tree." 

Convention  oratory  in  its  extravagance  and  swift 
impressions  is  a  thing  apart,  and  Conkling's  ranks 
among  its  great  examples,  but  there  were  sentences 
in  this  speech  of  his  which  were  to  be  remembered 
beyond  the  moment:  "His  services  attest  his  great 
ness."  "His  fame  was  earned,  not  alone  by  things 
written  and  said,  but  by  the  arduous  greatness  of 
things  done."  "To  him  immeasurably  more  than  to 
any  other  man  is  due  the  fact  that  every  paper 
dollar  is  at  last  as  good  as  gold."  "When  he  refused 
to  receive  Denis  Kearney  of  California,  he  meant 
that  communism,  lawlessness,  and  disorder,  although 


THE   THIRD   TERM  545 

it  might  stalk  high-headed  and  dictate  law  to  a  whole 
city,  would  always  find  a  foe  in  him."  1 

1  "  From  his  first  utterance  in  the  convention  to  the  last,  Mr. 
Conkling's  manner  was  one  studied  taunt  to  his  opponents. 
Nothing  approaching  it  in  arrogance  and  insolence  has  been  wit 
nessed  in  a  political  convention,  either  before  or  since.  If  there  had 
been  any  chance  of  a  compromise  of  one  faction  in  favor  of  the 
other,  he  destroyed  it  utterly  in  the  first  half-hour. 

"  His  first  act  was  to  move  a  resolution  binding  the  members  of 
the  convention  to  support  the  nominee,  whoever  he  might  be.  In 
doing  this  he  took  pains  to  intimate  with  unmistakable  plainness 
his  belief  that  the  Blaine  men  would  bolt  in  case  Grant  was  nomi 
nated,  unless  they  were  pledged  in  advance  not  to  do  so.  This 
resolution  was  adopted,  but  the  debate  upon  it  made  him  the  most 
unpopular  man  in  the  convention  with  the  supporters  of  all  other 
candidates  than  Grant,  and  thus  debarred  the  latter  from  hope  of 
recruits.  His  next  important  effort  was  to  have  the  unit  rule  en 
forced  upon  all  delegations  in  order  that  a  majority  in  each  should 
be  able  to  cast  the  solid  vote  of  the  State  for  the  candidate  of  their 
choice.  In  this  effort  he  was  as  offensive  as  he  had  been  in  his 
previous  one.  A  long  chapter  might  be  filled  with  Mr.  Conkling's 
astounding  arrogance.  .  .  . 

"  In  his  speech  nominating  Grant  he  went  out  of  his  way  to  give 
mortal  offense  to  the  Blaine  forces  and  to  all  other  elements  of  the 
convention  that  were  opposing  Grant.  In  his  written  copy  of  the 
speech,  which  was  given  out  in  advance  to  the  press,  he  had  this 
simple  sentence  at  the  beginning:  'When  asked  whence  comes 
our  candidate,  we  say  from  Appomattox.'  There  is  dignity,  sim 
plicity,  and  dramatic  force  in  that  sentence,  which  is  certainly  not 
to  be  found  in  the  '  improved  '  version  which  seems  to  have  been 
an  inspiration  of  the  moment. 

"  When  the  balloting  began  and  it  was  his  duty  as  chairman  of 
the  New  York  delegation  to  announce  its  vote,  he  did  so  with 
studied  insolence  toward  the  anti-Grant  members.  His  favorite 
formula  was :  '  Two  of  the  New  York  delegates,  Mr.  Chairman,  are 
said  to  be  for  Mr.  Sherman,  seventeen  for  Mr.  Blaine,  fifty-one 
are  for  Grant.'  He  repeated  this  with  slight  variations  till  the 
chairman  of  the  West  Virginia  delegation  mimicked  his  manner  and 


546  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

For  thirty-six  ballots,  and  for  two  days,  the  "Old 
Guard"  battled,  holding  their  lines  with  a  stern  dis 
cipline  never  rivaled  before  or  since.  Others  weak 
ened  here  and  there  as  the  maneuvering  went  on  — • 
not  they.  On  the  first  ballot  they  threw  to  Grant  304 
votes.  In  the  two  days  they  did  not  fall  below  302, 
and  even  on  the  thirty-fifth  ballot,  after  the  tide 
began  to  set  toward  Garfield,  they  were  313.  On  the 
last  ballot,  when  the  stampede  was  on,  their  line  re 
mained  unbroken,  and  the  306  who  voted  at  the  very 
end  for  Grant  have  won  their  place  in  history. 

Garfield,  who  had  entered  the  convention  pledged 
to  Sherman,  who  had  led  the  forces  against  Conkling 
on  the  floor,  and  who  from  the  beginning  had  re 
ceived  a  single  vote  in  almost  every  ballot,  was  nomi 
nated  by  the  friends  of  Blaine  in  a  resistless  rush 
which  some  said  had  long  been  prearranged,  although 
the  evidence  of  this  was  never  clear.  To  mollify  the 
"Old  Guard,"  Arthur,  whom  Grant  had  made  Col 
lector  of  the  Port  of  New  York  and  who  had  been 
removed  by  Hayes,  was  nominated  for  Vice-Presi 
dent .  Conkling  would  have  spurned  the  sop  when  the 
New  York  delegation  was  requested  to  select  a  man, 

method  so  perfectly  that  the  whole  convention  roared.  After  that 
he  did  not  venture  on  further  repetition,  but  resorted  to  such  say 
ings  as  that  a  member  who  was  absent  was  possibly  '  meditating 
some  new  form  of  treachery.'  "  (Bishop,  Presidential  Nominations 
and  Elections,  pp.  80-84.) 


THE   THIRD  TERM  547 

but  Arthur,  who  was  a  delegate-at-large,  whispered 
to  Conkling  that  he  would  like  the  place  —  a  hint 
which  had  far-reaching  consequences. 

Through  it  all  Grant  went  about  his  business  at 
Galena.  Conkling,  in  nominating  him,  with  a  covert 
sneer  at  Blame  had  said:  "He  has  no  place;  and 
official  influence  has  not  been  used  for  him.  Without 
patronage,  without  emissaries,  without  committees, 
without  bureaux,  without  telegraph  wires  running 
from  his  house  or  from  the  seats  of  influence  to  this 
convention,  without  appliances,  without  electioneer 
ing  contrivances,  without  effort  on  his  part,  Grant's 
name  is  on  his  country's  lips." 

This  was  all  true.  During  the  convention,  while 
bulletins  were  coming  in,  he  spent  his  time  with  two 
or  three  at  Rowley's  office.  When  word  arrived  that 
Conkling's  lines  on  Appomattox  had  been  greeted  by 
a  storm  of  cheers  which  lasted  half  an  hour,  he  went 
home  saying  to  his  son  with  something  like  a  sigh: 
"I  am  afraid  I  am  going  to  be  nominated."  Through 
out  the  hours  of  balloting  he  gave  no  sign.  When  he 
was  told  about  the  final  vote,  he  brushed  the  ashes 
from  his  cigar,  said,  "Garfield  is  a  good  man.  I  am 
glad  of  it.  Good-night,  gentlemen,"  and  walked 
home  without  another  word.  But  he  was  not  im 
pervious  to  defeat.  He  was  hurt  to  think  that  with 
the  Cameron  letter  in  their  hands  the  "Old  Guard" 


548  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

let  him  go  so  far.  "My  friends  have  not  been  honest 
with  me,"  he  said.  "I  could  not  afford  to  be  de 
feated.  They  should  not  have  placed  me  in  nomina 
tion  unless  they  felt  perfectly  sure  of  my  success." 
And  some  whom  he  thought  had  not  played  him  fair 
he  never  quite  forgave  —  among  them  Washburne, 
who  let  his  own  name  be  used  to  divide  Logan's 
strength  in  Illinois. 


CHAPTER  XLVII 

THE  END 

WHEN  Grant  left  the  White  House  he  should  have 
said  good-bye  to  politics.  That  was  a  game  in  which 
he  was  not  qualified  to  play;  he  would  have  been 
happier  if  he  had  frankly  recognized  the  truth.  But 
he  had  friends  to  whom  he  felt  under  obligation  and 
for  their  sake  he  bared  his  dignity  to  his  successors  in 
the  Presidency,  laying  it  open  to  rebuff.  During  most 
of  Hayes's  term  Grant  watched  the  Administration 
from  abroad.  He  did  not  sympathize  with  Hayes's 
course  in  Louisiana  and  South  Carolina,  abandoning 
the  local  governments  while  profiting  himself  by 
practically  the  same  returns  as  those  on  which  both 
Chamberlain  and  Packard  based  their  claims. 

Not  only  did  Hayes  reverse  Grant's  Southern 
policy,  but  he  alienated  Conkling  by  the  summary 
removal  of  Cornell  and  Arthur  from  the  New  York 
Custom  House.  During  his  Administration  there  was 
a  general  softening  of  party  fiber. 

After  Garfield's  nomination  Grant  went  to  Colo 
rado.  He  sent  no  message  of  congratulation.  Many 
thought  that  he  would  sulk;  some  even  that  he 
would  support  Hancock,  his  former  comrade  in  arms. 


550  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

But  in  September,  when  things  looked  blue  for 
Garfield,  he  publicly  declared  his  purpose  to  support 
the  ticket,  and  brought  Conkling  into  line,  with 
others  of  the  Stalwart  group.  Grant  and  Conkling 
both  went  on  the  stump  —  for  Grant  had  learned  to 
speak  in  public  while  abroad.  After  the  election,  for 
the  result  of  which  he  felt  himself  in  large  part  re 
sponsible,  he  was  not  asked  for  his  advice  and  did  not 
tender  it.  He  was  displeased  and  mortified  when  told 
that  Elaine  was  booked  to  head  the  Cabinet,  yet  went 
to  Washington  after  the  4th  of  March  and  pledged 
Garfield  his  support.  But  quickly  came  the  Robert 
son  appointment  in  New  York,  the  resignation  of 
Platt  and  Conkling  from  the  Senate  by  way  of  pro 
test,  and  the  ill-fated  struggle  for  their  reelection. 

Robertson,  who  had  led  the  fight  against  Grant  in 
the  New  York  delegation  at  Chicago,  was  especially 
obnoxious,  and  Grant  strongly  sympathized  with 
Conkling  in  the  feud.  He  was  angered,  too,  because 
without  consulting  him  Garfield  had  made  a  place  for 
Merritt,  the  deposed  New  York  collector,  by  arbi 
trarily  transferring  his  own  particular  appointees 
abroad.1 

1  "  In  their  letter  of  resignation,  addressed  to  Governor  Cornell 
on  May  14,  1881,  Senators  Conkling  and  Platt  say:  —  'Some 
weeks  ago  the  President  sent  to  the  Senate  in  a  group  the  nomi 
nations  of  several  persons  for  public  offices  already  filled.  One  of 
these  offices  is  the  collectorship  of  the  port  of  New  York,  now  held 
by  General  Merritt;  another  is  the  consul-generalship  at  London, 


THE   END  551 

Grant  was  in  Mexico  that  spring,  whence  he  wrote 
in  May:  "I  am  completely  disgusted  with  Garfield's 
course.  It  is  too  late  now  for  him  to  do  anything  to 
restore  him  to  my  confidence.  I  will  never  again  lend 
my  active  aid  to  the  support  of  a  presidential  candi 
date  who  has  not  strength  enough  to  appear  before  a 
convention  as  a  candidate.  .  .  .  Garfield  has  shown 
that  he  is  not  possessed  of  the  backbone  of  an  angle 
worm.  1  hope  his  nominations  may  be  defeated."  His 
feeling  against  Garfield  was  generally  known  through 
personal  letters  which  slipped  into  print.  When  Gar- 
field  was  shot,  Grant  for  a  time,  like  Conkling,  was  a 
target  for  the  people's  wrath,  which  had  hardly  died 
away  when  in  September  he  followed  Garfield's 
coffin,  as  he  had  followed  those  of  Sumner,  Motley, 
and  Greeley  —  each  in  turn. 

now  held  by  General  Badeau;  another  is  charge  d'affaires  to  Den 
mark,  held  by  Mr.  Cramer;  another  is  the  mission  to  Switzerland, 
held  by  Mr.  Fish,  a  son  of  the  former  distinguished  Secretary  of 
State.  .  .  .  All  these  officers  save  only  Mr.  Cramer  are  citizens  of 
New  York.  It  was  proposed  to  displace  them  all,  not  for  any  al 
leged  fault  of  theirs,  or  for  any  alleged  need  or  advantage  of  the 
public  service,  but  in  order  to  give  the  great  office  of  Collector  of 
the  Port  of  New  York  to  Mr.  William  H.  Robertson  as  a  "  re 
ward  "  for  certain  acts  of  his  said  to  have  "  aided  in  making  the 
nomination  of  General  Garfield  possible."  The  chain  of  removals 
thus  proposed  was  broken  by  General  Badeau's  promptly  declin 
ing  to  accept  the  new  place  to  which  he  was  sent.'  A  protest 
against  the  change  in  collectorship  signed  by  Arthur,  Conkling, 
Platt,  Postmaster-General  James,  and  Governor  Cornell,  had  been 
addressed  to  the  President  and  ignored."  (A.  R.  Conkling,  Life 
and  Letters  of  R.  Conkling,  pp.  639-40.) 


552  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT    . 

With  Arthur  he  was  at  first  on  cordial  terms  and 
Arthur  freely  asked  him  for  advice.  At  his  suggestion 
Frelinghuysen  was  appointed  Secretary  of  State,  and 
Governor  Morgan  of  New  York  was  asked  to  take  the 
Treasury.  Morgan  declined,  and  Grant  proposed 
John  Jacob  Astor,  first  for  the  Treasury  and  then 
for  Minister  to  England,  but  neither  suggestion  was 
adopted.  Before  long  Arthur  came  to  shun  his  Stal 
wart  friends,  perhaps  because  he  felt  that  they  pre 
sumed  on  old  association.  He  wanted  to  be  President 
in  his  own  right,  and  to  accomplish  this,  saw  the  ne 
cessity  for  different  ties.  That  was  a  trait  entirely 
foreign  to  Grant's  nature,  the  sort  of  thing  he  could 
not  understand.  Through  all  his  life  he  had  been 
loyal  to  his  friends  even  to  the  peril  of  his  own  good 
name. 

Invited  to  the  White  House  for  a  visit,  he  was  be 
set  by  satellites  and  relatives  begging  him  to  urge 
upon  the  President  their  claims  for  office  or  for  favor, 
and  he  good-naturedly  yielded  to  their  importunities 
till  Arthur  plainly  showed  displeasure  and  at  times 
evaded  him.  He  wanted  his  friend  General  Beale 
made  Secretary  of  the  Navy.  Arthur  appointed  in 
his  stead  William  E.  Chandler,  who  as  the  friend  of 
Blaine  had  been  a  leading  factor  in  the  defeat  of 
Grant  for  a  third  term.  After  that  the  coolness 
between  Grant  and  Arthur  grew.  "He  seems  more 


GRANT  AT   SIXTY 

Photograph  by  Fredricks,  New  York,  188$ 

From  the  collection  of  Frederick  Hill  Meserw 


THE   END  553 

afraid  of  his  enemies  and  through  this  fear  more  in 
fluenced  by  them  than  guided  either  by  his  judgment, 
personal  feelings,  or  friendly  influences,"  Grant 
wrote  in  February,  1883,  and  a  year  later,  on  the 
eve  of  the  National  Convention,  he  wrote:  "Arthur 
will  probably  go  into  the  convention  second  in  the 
number  of  supporters,  when  he  would  not  probably 
have  a  single  vote  if  it  was  not  for  his  army  of 
officials  and  the  vacancies  he  has  to  fill." 

He  had  a  grievance,  not  due  to  patronage,  but  to 
Arthur's  failure  to  right  what  Grant  had  come  to 
look  on  as  a  wrong  —  his  own  refusal  while  President 
to  allow  Fitz  John  Porter  a  second  trial.  Since  then, 
through  a  more  thorough  study  of  the  evidence,  he 
had  become  convinced  that  Porter  was  innocent  of 
the  charge  of  which  he  had  been  convicted  by  court- 
martial  during  the  war.  The  sentence  having  been 
reversed  at  last  by  the  board  of  which  Schofield  was 
the  head,  Grant  worked  hard  to  put  the  bill  through 
Congress  authorizing  the  President  to  restore  Porter 
to  his  former  rank,  and  when  Arthur  vetoed  the  bill 
on  the  ground  that  Congress  had  infringed  upon 
the  executive  prerogative  in  designating  a  person  by 
name  whom  the  President  was  to  appoint,  Grant  did 
not  hesitate  publicly  to  criticize  the  motive  behind 
the  veto.  As  between  Elaine  and  Arthur  in  1884, 
Grant  preferred  the  nomination  of  Blaine,  but  owing 


554  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

to  his  illness  he  did  not  vote  for  him.  A  year  before 
the  election  he  had  written:  "The  Republican  Party, 
to  be  saved,  must  have  a  decisive,  declared  policy.  It 
has  now  no  observable  policy  except  to  peddle  out 
patronage  to  soreheads,  in  order  to  bring  them  back 
into  the  fold,  and  avoid  any  positive  declarations 
upon  all  leading  questions."  x  In  his  political  convic 
tions  Grant  was  a  Stalwart  to  the  end. 

Grant  had  no  sooner  come  back  from  his  trip 
abroad  than  he  began  to  think  about  a  livelihood. 
He  was  obliged  to  turn  his  hand  to  making  money,  a 
trick  in  which  he  never  had  shown  skill.  Just  before 
coming  East  from  Colorado  he  had  written:  "One 
thing  is  certain;  I  must  do  something  to  supple 
ment  my  income,  or  continue  to  live  in  Galena  or 
on  a  farm.  I  have  not  got  the  means  to  live  in  a 
city." 

He  always  had  a  lively  interest  in  Mexico,  and 
now,  after  the  third  term  episode,  his  friend  Rom 
ero,  for  years  the  Mexican  Minister  in  Washington, 
joined  with  him  in  organizing  a  company,  of  which 
Grant  became  president,  the  purpose  of  which  was  to 
build  a  railroad  south  to  the  Guatemalan  border. 
The  enterprise  was  not  successful,  but  in  1882,  at 
Frelinghuysen's  hint,  Arthur  made  him  a  commis 
sioner  to  negotiate  a  commercial  treaty  with  Mexico, 
1  Grant  in  Peace.  Badeau,  p.  345. 


THE   END  555 

an  appointment  which  he  accepted  solely  because  of 
his  ambition  to  establish  closer  business  and  political 
relations  between  the  two  Republics. 

The  treaty  was  concluded.  Grant  would  have  had 
quick  action  by  our  Senate;  for  delay  he  knew  would 
give  to  foreign  interests  an  opportunity  to  influence 
adversely  the  Mexican  authorities,  but  the  Adminis 
tration  did  nothing  further.  The  treaty  was  not 
ratified,  and  no  more  was  heard  of  it. 

Here  ends  the  record  of  Grant's  public  service.  Had 
this  been  all,  it  would  have  been  a  tame  and  futile 
termination  of  a  great  career  which  had  its  crown  in 
the  tumultuous  welcome  home  after  his  triumphal 
march  around  the  world.  In  three  years  he  had  fallen 
in  the  popular  esteem.  His  fatal  acquiescence  in  the 
third  term  move;  his  meddling  with  the  patronage; 
his  good-natured  readiness  to  place  his  influence  at 
the  disposal  of  his  friends,  had  all  contributed  to  blur 
his  fame.  He  had  gone  into  Wall  Street  and  the 
people  knew  it.  He  thought  that  he  was  making 
money.  So  did  they.  Prosperity  alarms  idolatry; 
incense  burns  grudgingly  on  the  Stock  Exchange; 
and  Grant  in  this  followed  the  way  of  other  heroes. 
But  his  life,  already  packed  with  contrasts,  was  to  un 
dergo  one  more  swift  transformation.  The  few  months 
left  him  were  to  bring  both  tragedy  and  triumph, 


556  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

misfortune  in  the  end  restoring  him  to  his  own  right 
ful  province  in  the  people's  love. 

When  Grant  went  abroad  he  entrusted  to  Ulysses 
S.  Grant,  Jr.,  what  property  he  had,  and  the  son,  who 
was  supposed  to  have  a  business  head,  enlarged  the 
trust.  He  had  married  the  daughter  of  Senator 
Chaffee,  a  Colorado  millionaire,  and  had  settled  in 
New  York,  where  in  1879  he  became  acquainted 
with  young  Ferdinand  Ward,  just  blossoming  as  a 
Napoleon  of  the  Street.  Through  some  of  Ward's 
ventures  he  made  money  for  the  General,  which 
enabled  Grant  to  complete  his  trip  around  the  world. 
In  the  fall  of  1880,  Ward  proposed  a  private  banking 
firm  to  do  a  Wall  Street  business  under  the  style  of 
Grant  &  Ward,  he  to  be  financial  agent,  young 
Grant  to  be  an  active  partner,  with  the  General  and 
James  F.  Fish,  Ward's  father-in-law,  the  President  of 
the  Marine  Bank  of  Brooklyn,  as  silent  partners. 
The  new  firm  ranked  high;  Ward  was  the  marvel  of 
the  Street;  he  had  unbounded  credit;  the  market 
boomed;  the  firm's  investors  received  amazing  divi 
dends.  From  operations  in  stocks,  bonds,  and  railway 
contracts,  the  firm  of  Grant  &  Ward,  beginning  with 
a  paid-in-capital  of  $400,000,  mostly  contributed  by 
Chaffee,  and  other  connections  of  the  Grants, — both 
Fred  and  Jesse  had  married  well  and  settled  in  New 
York,  —  had  in  three  years  acquired  a  rating  of 


THE   END  557 

$15,000,000  and  a  deposit  of  nearly  a  million  in  Fish's 
bank.  Grant  having  put  in  all  his  money  paid  no  at 
tention  to  the  business  details,  nor  did  his  son.  They 
simply  saw  their  income  pouring  in  and  trusted 
Ward  implicitly.  But  while  Ward  talked  to  them 
of  railway  contracts  and  huge  rates  of  interest  for 
emergency  loans  to  subcontractors,  he  talked  to  cus 
tomers  about  Grant's  influence  in  getting  contracts 
from  the  Government  —  a  form  of  business  which 
Grant  expressly  stipulated  the  firm  should  never  un 
dertake.  He  knew  that  this  would  be  an  impropriety. 

"I  had  been  President  of  the  United  States,"  he 
later  testified,  "and  I  did  not  think  it  was  suitable 
for  me  to  have  my  name  connected  with  Govern 
ment  contracts,  and  I  knew  that  there  was  no  large 
profit  in  them  except  by  dishonest  measures.  There 
are  some  men  who  get  Government  contracts  year 
in  and  year  out,  and  whether  they  manage  their 
affairs -dishonestly  to  make  a  profit  or  not,  they  are 
sometimes  supposed  to,  and  I  did  not  think  it  was 
any  place  for  me." 

Grant,  all  unconscious  of  impending  fate,  was 
looking  forward  to  prosperity  in  his  remaining  years. 
Some  of  his  nearest  friends  were  men  of  wealth,  and 
now  he  felt  that  he  could  associate  with  them  on  even 
terms.  He  had  a  handsome  house  in  Sixty-sixth 
Street,  near  Fifth  Avenue,  and  there,  surrounded  by 


558  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

his  family  and  trophies,  he  planned  to  end  his  days  in 
profitable  ease.  Besides  his  generous  dividends  from 
Grant  &  Ward,  he  had  a  $15,000  income  from  a  fund 
subscribed  for  him  by  New  York  financiers.  He  had 
no  public  cares  or  aspirations,  no  lingering  restless 
ness  for  power;  his  skies  were  clear  of  clouds;  he  was 
content. 

The  day  before  Christmas  in  December,  1883,  he 
slipped  on  the  icy  sidewalk  before  his  house,  crush 
ing  the  muscles  of  his  leg.  He  did  not  leave  his  bed 
for  weeks.  Then  for  months  he  hobbled  about 
on  crutches,  recovering  his  strength  somewhat  in 
Washington  and  Fort  Monroe,  but  never  quite  re 
gaining  his  health.  At  home  again  in  April,  still  lame 
but  prosperous,  he  drove  about  and  went  downtown 
on  business,  free  from  financial  worry. 

One  Sunday  evening,  May  4,  1884,  Ward  came  to 
see  him,  told  him  the  Marine  Bank  was  in  trouble, 
that  the  City  Chamberlain  had  drawn  heavily  late 
the  afternoon  before,  imperiling  the  bank's  reserve, 
and  unless  $400,000  could  be  raised  at  once  the  bank 
must  close  its  doors  on  Monday  morning,  tying  up 
the  firm's  deposit  of  $660,000  and  threatening  ruin. 
He  had  himself  raised  $250,000,  but  could  go  no 
farther  and  Grant  must  raise  the  rest.  This  was  new 
business  for  the  General.  He  did  not  know  where  to 
turn,  but  Ward  suggested  W.  H.  Vanderbilt,  and 


THE   END  559 

Grant  saw  Vanderbilt  that  night,  told  him  the  story, 
and  obtained  from  him  $150,000 — not  for  the  sake  of 
the  Marine  Bank  or  of  the  firm  of  Grant  &  Ward,  as 
Vanderbilt  assured  him,  but  as  a  personal  loan.  The 
next  day  the  loan  was  paid,  so  Grant  supposed, 
through  the  firm's  check  drawn  on  the  bank.  On 
Tuesday  morning,  when  Grant  limped  into  the  firm's 
office,  he  was  stunned  by  his  son's  greeting:  "Grant 
&  Ward  have  failed  and  Ward  has  fled!  "  He  turned 
away  without  a  word,  ascended  slowly  to  his  own 
private  room,  and  late  that  afternoon  the  cashier 
found  him  sitting  there,  close  to  his  desk,  clasping  the 
arms  of  his  chair  convulsively,  head  bowed. 

Before  night  it  was  known  that  every  dollar  he 
possessed  was  swept  away.  The  firm  had  no  deposits 
in  the  bank.  The  securities  Ward  talked  about  were 
worthless.  All  the  Grants  were  pauperized;  their 
entire  fortunes  were  tied  up  with  the  firm.  Trades 
men's  bills  came  pouring  in,  and  had  it  not  been  for 
prompt  and  generous  action  by  a  stranger,1  who 
forced  Grant  to  accept  a  loan  "on  account  of  my 
share  for  services  ending  April,  1865,"  he  could  not 
have  bought  provisions  for  a  meal.  He  was  too  proud 
and  silent  to  appeal  for  credit  then. 

In  order  to  save  something  from  the  vultures, 
Vanderbilt  insisted  on  security  for  his  personal  loan, 
1  Charles  Wood,  of  Lansingburg,  New  York. 


560  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

and  to  him  Grant  assigned  his  farm,  his  wife's  real 
estate  in  Philadelphia  and  Chicago,  and  all  his  per 
sonal  property  —  including  the  trophies  of  the  war, 
his  medals,  swords,  and  uniforms.  The  debt  to  Van- 
derbilt  was  one  of  honor.  With  him  it  had  prece 
dence  over  obligations  of  the  firm  of  Grant  &  Ward. 

Vanderbilt  afterwards  tried  to  transfer  the  property 
to  Mrs.  Grant,  but  she  refused  his  offer,  except  as  to 
the  trophies,  which  she  accepted  in  trust,  to  be  placed 
at  the  disposal  of  the  Government.  For  their  con 
spiracy  to  defraud,  Fish  was  sentenced  to  seven  years 
in  prison,  Ward  to  ten. 

Stripped  of  his  livelihood,  harassed  by  obligations, 
chagrined  by  failure,  smarting  under  unjust  stings, 
feeble  in  body,  with  age  creeping  on,  Grant  had 
again  to  face  the  world.  He  could  no  longer  justify  his 
simple  faith  in  human  nature.  "I  have  made  it  the 
rule  of  my  life,"  he  said,  "to  trust  a  man  long  after 
other  people  gave  him  up;  but  I  don't  see  how  I  can 
ever  trust  any  human  being  again."  Yet  his  bitter 
ness  of  soul  was  sanctified.  Without  it  history  could 
not  record  the  last  fine  chapter  of  his  contradictory 
career,  shedding  a  halo  over  all  that  went  before. 
His  bearing  in  adversity  beatified  him  in  the  world's 
regard. 

Before  his  failure  the  "Century  Magazine,"  which 
had  begun  its  series  on  the  battles  of  the  Civil  War, 


THE   END  561 

had  urged  him  to  write  the  story  of  Shiloh  or  of  the 
Wilderness.  But  he  was  not  inclined  to  do  it.  Writing 
was  not  his  trade.  Now  they  came  back  with  their 
proposal.  It  would  divert  his  mind;  he  could  earn 
money  in  this  way;  his  need  decided  him.  He  wrote 
an  article  on  Shiloh  and  was  astonished  at  himself  to 
find  that  he  could  make  a  story  full  of  human  interest 
as  easily  as  he  had  once  indited  orders  and  reports. 
He  had  the  faculty  of  narrative  in  an  unusual  degree, 
as  he  had  often  shown  among  his  intimates;  for  all 
his  life  he  was  an  entertaining  talker,  at  times  mo 
nopolizing  conversation  in  choice  groups  of  friends. 
His  stillness  fell  upon  him  only  in  public  or  with  those 
he  slightly  knew. 

After  Shiloh  came  Vicksburg,  Chattanooga,  and 
the  Wilderness  for  the  "Century,"  and  from  these 
grew  the  "Memoirs."  He  was  absorbed  in  his  new 
work,  and  urged  on  by  the  demand  for  more.  Thus 
he  occupied  the  summer  at  Long  Branch,  writing 
daily  with  the  help  of  Badeau  and  his  oldest  son,  who 
verified  his  records  and  combined  his  notes;  but  he 
was  daily  growing  feebler,  till  in  October  on  his  return 
to  town  he  became  conscious  of  pains  shooting 
through  his  throat.  The  physicians  told  him  it  was 
cancer.  Soon  he  could  not  swallow  without  torture. 
He  had  no  wish  to  live  if  he  could  not  recover.  For  a 
time  he  did  not  care  to  write  or  talk.  He  "often  sat 


562  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

for  hours  propped  up  in  his  chair,  with  his  hands 
clasped,  looking  at  the  blank  wall  before  him,  silent, 
contemplating  the  future;  not  alarmed,  but  solemn,  at 
the  prospect  of  pain  and  disease;  and  only  death  at 
the  end.  It  was  like  a  man  gazing  into  his  open 
grave.  He  was  in  no  way  discouraged,"  writes  Ba- 
deau,  "  but  the  sight  was  to  me  the  most  appalling 
I  have  ever  witnessed." 

Then  there  came  a  change.  He  grimly  turned 
once  more  to  his  new  work.  He  would  complete  his 
task  for  his  own  sake,  his  family,  and  those  to  whom 
he  was  in  debt.  The  first  money  he  received  he  sent 
the  stranger  who  had  given  him  the  loan  in  May. 
But  he  could  hardly  hope  to  wipe  out  all  his  obliga 
tions,  and  when  in  January  came  the  doctor's  final 
verdict  that  he  could  not  recover,  he  was  in  mental 
agony;  not  that  he  had  to  die,  but  that  he  might  not 
live  till  he  had  fully  cleared  his  name. 

A  bill  had  passed  the  Senate  the  preceding  winter 
to  restore  his  rank  and  place  him  on  the  retired  list 
of  the  Army,  but  Arthur  had  hinted  that  he  would 
veto  it,  as  in  the  Fitz  John  Porter  case,  if  Grant  were 
to  be  restored  by  name.  He  felt  this  keenly  and  it 
contributed  to  his  distress. 

Soon  the  world  knew  that  he  was  dying  and  sym 
pathy  came  pouring  in  from  everywhere.  The  bill 
for  his  retirement,  modified  to  meet  the  President's 


THE   END  563 

objections,  was  revised,  but  was  held  up  for  party 
reasons  in  the  House,  the  Democrats  attempting  to 
embarrass  Arthur  by  forcing  through  the  earlier  bill, 
and  thus  compelling  him  to  reverse  himself  or  veto  it. 
Congress  was  near  its  end,  and  Grant,  who  looked 
upon  the  measure  as  in  some  way  a  vindication,  felt 
the  rebuff.  The  bill  was  beaten  in  the  House  on 
February  16,  the  anniversary  of  Donelson.  It  was 
felt  then  that  any  day  might  be  his  last.  The  country 
was  aroused  and  public  sentiment  prevailed.  On  the 
4th  of  March,  in  the  closing  hours  of  Congress,  the 
bill,  amended  as  Arthur  wished,  was  rushed  through 
House  and  Senate  by  unanimous  consent,  and  Ar 
thur  sent  in  Grant's  name  just  in  time.  Cleveland 
signed  the  new  commission  —  the  second  act  of  his 
Administration. 

Grant's  life  thenceforward  was  a  desperate  fight 
with  death.  More  than  once  the  end  seemed  right  at 
hand,  and  once  the  doctors  thought  that  it  had  come. 
For  months  he  could  not  lie  in  bed,  but  sat  propped 
up  in  chairs,  suffering  excruciating  pain.  Even  those 
with  whom  he  had  long  been  in  feud  now  shared  the 
universal  sympathy.  On  the  anniversary  of  the  day 
that  Richmond  fell  he  dictated  this  message:  "I 
am  very  much  touched  and  grateful  for  the  sym 
pathy  and  interest  manifested  in  me  by  my  friends  — 
and  by  those  who  have  not  hitherto  been  regarded  as 


564  ULYSSES   S.  GRANT 

friends.  I  desire  the  good- will  of  all,  whether  hitherto 
friends  or  not." 

It  is  not  necessary  to  prolong  the  story.  Its  plain 
recital  cuts  one  like  a  knife.  He  kept  at  work  upon 
his  book,  dictating  when  he  could  not  speak  above  a 
whisper,  more  often  penciling  his  sentences  on  pads. 
The  passages  he  wrote  in  the  last  weeks  were  just  and 
lucid.  They  read  so  simply  that  we  can  hardly  realize 
how  every  paragraph  was  drenched  in  pain.  In  June 
they  carried  him  to  Mount  McGregor,  and  there  on 
July  23  he  died.  He  did  not  drop  his  pencil  till  his 
work  was  done.  Three  weeks  before  his  death,  on 
July  2,  he  wrote  to  his  physician,  Dr.  Douglass,  a 
letter  with  which  this  record  of  his  life  may  fittingly 
conclude :  — 

"  I  ask  you  not  to  show  this  to  any  one,  unless  the 
physicians  you  consult  with,  until  the  end.  Particu 
larly,  I  want  it  kept  from  my  family.  ...  I  know 
that  I  gain  strength  some  days,  but  when  I  do  go 
back  it  is  beyond  where  I  started  to  improve.  I 
think  the  chances  are  very  decidedly  in  favor  of 
your  being  able  to  keep  me  alive  until  the  change  of 
weather  towards  winter.  Of  course  there  are  con 
tingencies  that  might  arise  at  any  time  that  would 
carry  me  off  suddenly.  ...  I  would  say,  therefore, 
to  you  and  your  colleagues,  to  make  me  as  com 
fortable  as  you  can.  If  it  is  within  God's  providence 


From  the  collection  of  Frederick  Hill  JUest 
GRANT   WRITING   HIS   MEMOIRS   AT  MOUNT  McGREGOR 


THE   END  565 

that  I  should  go  now,  I  am  ready  to  obey  His  call 
without  a  murmur.  I  should  prefer  going  now  to  en 
during  my  present  suffering  for  a  single  day  with 
out  hope  of  recovery.  As  I  have  stated,  I  am  thank 
ful  for  the  providential  extension  of  my  time  to 
enable  me  to  continue  my  work.  I  am  further  thank 
ful,  and  in  a  much  greater  degree  thankful,  because 
it  has  enabled  me  to  see  for  myself  the  happy 
harmony  which  has  so  suddenly  sprung  up  between 
those  engaged  but  a  few  short  years  ago  in  deadly 
conflict.  It  has  been  an  inestimable  blessing  to  me  to 
hear  the  kind  expression  towards  me  in  person  from 
all  parts  of  our  country,  from  people  of  all  nationali 
ties,  of  all  religions  and  of  no  religion,  of  Confederates 
and  of  National  troops  alike,  of  soldiers'  organiza 
tions,  of  mechanical,  scientific,  religious,  and  other 
societies,  embracing  almost  every  citizen  in  the  land. 
They  have  brought  joy  to  my  heart,  if  they  have  not 
effected  a  cure.  So  to  you  and  your  colleagues  I 
acknowledge  my  indebtedness  for  having  brought  me 
through  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death  to  enable 
me  to  witness  these  things." 

THE  END 


INDEX 


Abbott,  Josiah  G.,  513. 

Acquisition  of  territory,  G.'s 
views  on,  331. 

Adams,  Charles  Francis,  Before 
and  After  the  Treaty  of  Wash 
ington,  quoted,  289,  290;  as 
Minister  to  Great  Britain,  de 
mands  reparation  for  damage 
caused  by  Alabama,  etc.,  293; 
quoted,  on  effect  of  Sumner's 
speech,  295;  on  Geneva  Board 
of  Arbitration,  310;  quoted, 
on  Sumner,  333;  quoted,  on 
himself  as  candidate  for 
Liberal  Republican  nomina 
tion,  414,  415;  282,  380,  412, 
413. 

Adams,  Henry,  The  Gold  Con 
spiracy,  345. 

Agassiz,  Louis,  291. 

Akerman,  Amos  T.,  Attorney- 
General,  326,  367,  386,  389. 

Alabama,  reorganized  state  gov 
ernment  in,  230;  in  1872,  460, 
461. 

Alabama  claims,  Johnson-Clar 
endon  Convention,  294,  295; 
Sumner's  estimate  of,  295-97; 
reopening  of  negotiations  con 
cerning,  302,  303;  the  Joint 
High  Commission,  308,  309; 
the  Geneva  Arbitration  and 
Award,  310. 

Alexander'  II,  Czar,  535. 

Allen,  John  ("Private"),  465. 

Allen,  William  ("Fog-horn"), 
499. 

Allison,  William  B.,  394. 

Ames,  Adelbert,  Governor  of 
Mississippi,  464,  465,  466. 

Ames,    Oakes,    and   the   Credit 


Mobilier,  431  ff.;  censured  by 
House,  434,  435. 

Amnesty,  special  acts  for  in 
dividuals,  375,  376;  G.'s  spe 
cial  message  on,  376 ;  general, 
blocked  by  Sumner,  is  finally 
accomplished,  377,  378. 

Andrew,  John  A.,  231,  291. 

Appomattox  Court-House.meet- 
ing  of  G.  and  Lee  at,  196  ff. 

Arbitration  of  international  dis 
putes,  Treaty  of  Washington 
first  triumph  of  principle  of, 
309,  310;  G.  entitled  to  credit 
for  establishing,  311. 

Argyle,  Duchess  of,  380. 

Arkansas,  in  1872  and  1874, 
461-63. 

Arthur,  Chester  A.,  nominated 
for  Vice-President  in  1880, 
and  why,  546,  547;  as  Presi 
dent,  G.'s  relations  with,  552- 
54;  vetoes  Fitz-John  Porter 
bill,  553;549,562,  563. 

Ashley,  James  M.,  320. 

Astor,  John  Jacob,  552. 

Atkinson,  Edward,  412. 

Augur,  C.  C.,  504. 

Babcock,  Orville  E.,  his  mis 
sion  to  San  Domingo,  314; 
unauthorized,  signs  protocol 
providing  for  annexation  to 
U.S.,  315,  316;  his  second 
visit  to  San  Domingo  results 
in  treaties  for  annexation, 
etc.,  317;  and  the  paving  con 
tracts,  476  ff.',  the  center 
of  Whiskey  Ring  scandal, 
4.7Qff. ;  indicted  for  conspiracy, 
481;  G.  comes  to  defense  of, 


568 


INDEX 


,  483,  484;  acquitted,  484,  485; 
his  later  relations  with  G., 
485;  125,  189,  281,  318,  320, 

323,  327,  390. 

Back  Pay  Grab.  See  Salary 
Grab. 

Badeau,  Adam,  his  Military 
History  of  the  U.S.  quoted,  on 
G.,  147-49;  his  Grant  in  Peace 
quoted,  554;  125,  226,  274, 

324,  384,  538,  550  n.,  561. 
Baez,  Buenaventura,  President 

of  San  Domingo,  seeks  inter 
vention  of  U.S.,  313;  A.  D. 
White  quoted  on,  313;  317. 

Baltimore,  riots  threatened  at, 
in  1866,  243,  244. 

Bancroft,  George,  234. 

Banks,  Nathaniel  P.,  59,  118, 
123,  130,  133,  160,  161. 

Barnard,  Mr.  (whiskey  scandal), 
478,  479. 

Bartlett,  William  F.,  412. 

Baxter,  Mr.  (Arkansas),  461, 
462. 

Bayard,  Thomas  F.,  513. 

Beale,  Edward  F.,  552. 

Beauregard,  G.  P.  T.,  succeeds 
to  chief  command  at  Shiloh  on 
death  of  A.  S.  Johnston,  88, 
89;  beaten  in  second  day's 
battle,  91,  92;  evacuates  Cor 
inth,  93;  84,  85,  96,  160,  171. 

Belknap,  William  W.,  Secretary 
of  War,  investigated  by  Con 
gressional  Committee,  488, 
489;  impeached,  and  resigns, 
489,  490;  Senate  fails  to  con 
vict,  490;  389,  470. 

Belknap,  Mrs.  W.  W.,  488,  489, 
490. 

Belmont,  Ky.,  battle  of,  63,  64, 
65. 

Bernard,  Montagu,  on  Joint 
High  Commission,  309. 

Bigelow,  John,  quoted,  on  G-'s 
first  Cabinet,  282,  283;  his 
Life  of  Tilden,  512. 


I  Bird,  Frank  W.,  412. 

Bishop,  J.  B.,  Presidential  Nomi 
nations  and  Elections,  545  n. 

Bismarck,  Prince  Otto  von, 
498  n.,  535. 

Black  Friday,  342  ff. 

Blaine,  James  G.,  why  he  failed 
of  the  nomination  in  1876, 
498,  499;  his  candidacy  in 
1880,  537,  542,  544,  545  n., 
547;  433,  511,  541,  550,  552, 
553. 

Blair,  Austin,  412. 

Blair,  Francis  P.,  Jr.,  47,  359, 
409. 

"Bloody  Shirt,"  waved  by  Re 
publicans  in  campaign  of 
1876,  500. 

Borie,  Adolph  E.,  278. 

Boston  Herald,  356. 

Boutwell,  George  S.,  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury,  277;  and  the 
corner  in  gold,  343  ff. ;  his  deal 
ings  with  the  public  debt,  351 ; 
433,  439,  445. 

Bowers,  T.  S.,  125,  163. 

Bowles,  Samuel,  quoted  on  G., 
379;  his  character,  379,  380; 
on  tariff  act  of  1872,  397,  398; 
382,412,415. 

Boynton,  Henry  V.,  on  G.  and 
the  Whiskey  Ring,  485  n., 
488  n. 

Bradley,  Justice  Joseph  P.,  and 
the  second  Legal  Tender  de 
cision,  354-56;  selected  as 
fifth  Supreme  Court  mem 
ber  of  Electoral  Commission 
(1877),  513;  his  opinion  in 
Florida  case,  514;  denounced 
by  Democrats,  515;  492. 

Bragg,  Braxton,  at  Shiloh,  88, 
89,  90;  107,  108,  130, 131,  132, 
136,  138. 

Brinkerhoff,  Jacob,  418. 

Bristow,  Benjamin  H.,  Secretary 
of  Treasury,  441;  and  the 
Whiskey  Ring  frauds,  476  ff. ; 


INDEX 


569 


G.  displeased  with  his  handling 
of  the  cases,  485,  486;  resigns, 
487;  as  candidate  for  presi 
dential  nomination  in  1876, 
498  and  n. 

Brodhead,  James  O.,  481. 

Brooks,  James,  434. 

Brooks,  Mr.  (Arkansas),  461, 
462. 

Brown,  B.  Gratz,  nominated  for 
Governor  of  Missouri,  by  Re 
publican  dissenters  in  1872, 
409. 

Brown,  John,  of  Ossawatomie,  8. 

Brown,  Owen,  father  of  John,  8. 

Bruce,  Blanche  K.,  361. 

Bryant,  William  Cullen,  quoted, 
on  nomination  of  Greeley, 
416;  412,  418. 

Buchanan,  James,  38,  72,  270, 
327. 

Buchanan,  R.  C.,  forces  G.'s  re 
tirement  from  the  army  in 
1854,  35. 

Buckner,  Simon  B.,  at  West 
Point  with  G.,  21 ;  in  Mexican 
War,  30;  helps  G.  in  time  of 
need,  37;  in  command  at 
Bowling  Green,  69 ;  takes  com 
mand  at  Donelson,  and  sur 
renders  to  G.,  73,  74. 

Buell,  Don  Carlos,  at  West 
Point  with  G.,  21;  at  Shiloh, 
90-92;  57,  69,  70,  77,  78,  84, 
85,  86,  93,  94,  95,  133,  150. 

Bullock,  Rufus  B.,  Governor  of 
Georgia,  364,  365,  366. 

Burnside,  Ambrose  E.,  130,  131, 
136,  137,  139,  150. 

Butler,  Benjamin  F.,  at  New 
Orleans,  104;  his  blunders 
in  command  of  Army  of  the 
James  upset  G.'s  plans,  170, 
171 ;  his  quarrels  with  "  Baldy" 
Smith,  174,  175;  alleged  by 
Smith  to  have  blackmailed  G., 
175;  sent  home  "for  the  good 
of  the  service,"  175,  176;  G.'s 


friendship  for,  during  his 
presidency,  a  mystery,  437; 
Butler's  Book,  437;  controls 
patronage  in  Mass.,  437,  438; 
selects  Simmons  for  Boston 
collectorship,  438;  had  he  a 
"hold"  on  G.?  438;  and  the 
Sanborn  contracts,  439  ff. ; 
59,  159,  161,  215,  272,  398. 

Butler,  Matthew  C.,  361  n. 

Butterfield,  Daniel,  Assistant 
Treasurer  at  N.Y.,  and  the 
"Gold  Conspiracy,"  344  ff.; 
forced  to  resign,  346. 

Cabinet  of  Pres.  Johnson,  and 
the  quarrel  with  G.,  264,  265, 
266. 

Cabinet,  G's  first,  275-78. 

Cabral,  Jose  M.  (San  Domingo), 
312  313 

"Caesarism,"  423,  457,  521. 

Cameron,  J.  Donald,  496,  537, 
540,  543,  547. 

Cameron,  Simon,  145,  320,  385, 
387,  401. 

Campaign  of  1876,  the,  500,  501. 

Campbell,  John  A.,  188. 

Campbell,  Mr.,  Minister  to 
Mexico,  245,  247. 

Canada,  annexation  of,  sug 
gested,  297;  real  obstacle  to 
annexation,  297,  298;  Sumner 
demands  Great  Britain's  with 
drawal  from,  307,  308. 

Carpenter,  Francis  B.,  168. 

Carpenter,  Matthew  H.,  de 
fends  G.  against  Sumner,  423, 
424;  401. 

Carpet-baggers,  272,  358,  359. 

Casserly,  Eugene,  321. 

Castelar,  Emilio,  524. 

Catacazy,  M.,  527. 

Cavour,  Count,  498  n. 

Cedar  Creek,  battle  of,  180. 

Century  Magazine,  G.  writes 
stories  of  his  battles  for,  560, 
561 ;  499  n.,  515  n. 


570 


INDEX 


Chaffee,  Jerome  B.,  556. 

Chaffee,  Miss,  556. 

Chamberlain,  Daniel  H.,  Gov 
ernor  of  South  Carolina,  472, 
518,  549. 

Chandler,  William  E.,  first  to 
claim  Hayes's  election,  501, 
502  n.;  552. 

Chandler,  Zachariah,  Secretary 
of  the  Interior,  491  and  n.; 
213,  215,  297,  328,  380,  384, 
387,  401,  500,  501,  502  and  n., 
503. 

Chapultepec,  battle  of,  28. 

Chase,  Salmon  P.,  distrustful  of 
G.'s  success,  in  1864,  169;  as 
Chief  Justice,  his  majority 
opinion  in  Hepburn  vs.  Gris- 
wold,  352,  353;  suggests  that 
Court  was  packed  with  a  view 
to  overruling  that  decision, 
355;  his  death,  492;  223,  356, 
398. 

Chattanooga,  G.  arrives  at  head 
quarters  at,  136, 137;  battle  of, 
137-40. 

Chicago,  whiskey  frauds  in,  476, 
477. 

Chicago  Tribune,  412,  413. 

Chickamauga  Creek,  battle  of, 
130,  131,  132. 

Childs,  George  W.,  his  Recollec 
tions  quoted,  519  n.;  384,  404, 
424,  425. 

Cincinnati  Commercial,  412,  413. 

City  Point,  G.'s  headquarters  at, 
a  secondary  Union  capital, 
188. 

Civil  Rights  bill,  of  1866,  passed 
over  Johnson's  veto,  236. 

Civil  Rights  bill,  of  1875,  de 
clared  unconstitutional,  463; 
377,  378. 

Civil  Service  Commission,  cre 
ated,  400;  appropriation  for, 
withheld,  400  ff. 

Civil-Service  reform,  in  party 
platforms  of  1872,  419,  420. 


Clarendon,  George  W.  F.  Villiers, 
Earl  of,  294,  300. 

Cleveland,  Grover,  signs  G.'s 
new  commission  as  lieutenant- 
general,  563. 

Clifford,  Justice  Nathan,  353, 
513. 

Clymer,  Heister,  489. 

Cobden  Club,  395. 

Cockburn,  Sir  Alexander,  on 
Geneva  Board,  310. 

Cold  Harbor,  battle  of,  165,  166; 
G.'s  admission  concerning, 
165. 

Colfax,  Schuyler,  Vice-President 
with  G.,  270,  271;  421,  433. 

Colfax,  La.,  massacre  of  negroes 
at,  468. 

Columbus,  Ky.,  seized  by  Polk, 
61. 

Comstock,  Cyrus  B.,  125,  259, 
263. 

Confederacy,  the,  condition  and 
prospects  of,  when  G.  as 
sumed  chief  command,  152.^.; 
in  sore  straits  in  winter  of 
1864,  187,  188. 

Confederates,  amnesty  granted 
to,  375,  376. 

Congress,  Thirty-Eighth,  fails  to 
recognize  reconstituted  state 
government  of  Louisiana, 
210,  211. 

Thirty-Ninth,  opposition  to 
Johnson's  policy  in,  organized 
by  Stevens  and  Sumner,  231; 
refuses  to  admit  members 
from  reconstructed  States, 
234,  235;  passes  Freedmen's 
Bureau  bill,  but  sustains  veto, 
235;  overrides  veto  of  Civil 
Rights  bill,  resolution  leading 
to  14th  Amendment,  new 
Freedmen's  Bureau  bill,  236, 
Reconstruction  Act  (1867), 
and  Tenure  of  Office  Act,  248, 
249 ;  Reconstruction  measures 
of,  reviewed,  250. 


INDEX 


571 


Fortieth,  adverse  results  of 
elections  to,  240;  strips  John 
son  of  authority  under  Recon 
struction  acts,  251;  Senate  re 
fuses  assent  to  suspension  of 
Stanton,  259;  House  passes 
resolutions  of  impeachment 
of  Johnson,  259,  269;  trial  of 
Johnson,  in  Senate,  results  in 
acquittal,  269,  270;  passes 
resolution  concerning  removal 
of  civil  officers  in  the  South, 
272. 

Forty-First,  Senate  refuses 
to  ratify  Johnson-Clarendon 
Convention,  295,  and  San 
Domingo  treaties,  320-323; 
Senate  appoints  committee 
to  investigate  San  Domingo 
matter,  326  ff.;  Cuban  ques 
tion  debated  in,  339;  passes 
act  to  strengthen  public  credit, 
341 ;  bars  representatives  from 
Georgia,  364;  passes  "En 
forcement  Acts,"  369  ff.,  and 
many  special  amnesty  acts, 
375,  376. 

Forty-Second,  Senate  rati 
fies  Treaty  of  Washington, 
309;  Senate  deposes  Sumner 
from  chairmanship  of  Foreign 
Relations  Committee,  333, 
385 ;  passes  act  to  enforce  pro 
visions  of  14th  Amendment, 
373;  House  passes  general 
amnesty  bill,  378;  tariff  bills 
passed  by,  397;  passes  Civil- 
Service  Reform  Act,  400,  but 
withholds  appropriation  for 
Commission,  400  ff. ;  investi 
gates  Credit  Mobilier  scandal, 
433,  434;  passes  salary  in 
crease  bill,  435,  436. 

Forty-Third,  repeals  salary 
increase,  as  to  Members  of 
Congress,  437 ;  investigates 
Sanborn  contracts,  440;  and 
the  currency,  445  ff.;  passes 


inflation  bill,  448,  which  G. 
vetoes,  451;  passes  Resump 
tion  Act,  454,  455;  passes 
Civil  Rights  bill,  463;  House 
investigates  Belknap  case 
and  passes  resolutions  of  im 
peachment,  488,  489;  Senate 
acquits  Belknap,  and  why, 
490. 

Forty-Fourth,  House  con 
trolled  by  Democrats,  452; 
House  had  made  itself  obnox 
ious,  496;  House  passes  anti- 
third-term  resolution,  497  n.; 
and  the  disputed  election  of 
1876,  507  ff.;  bill  creating 
Electoral  Commission  re 
ported  by  special  committee, 
and  passed,  510,  511;  Demo 
crats  in,  and  the  threat  to  de 
lay  count  of  vote  until  after 
March  4,  515,  516. 

Forty-Eighth,  passes  bill 
making  it  possible  to  restore 
G.  to  his  former  rank,  etc., 
563. 

Conkling,  A.  B.,  Life  and  Letters 
of  Roscoe  Conkling,  550  n. 

Conkling,  Roscoe,  declines 
Chief-Justiceship,  493;  leads 
G.'s  supporters  in  Conven 
tion  of  1880,  544;  J.  B.  Bishop 
quoted  on  his  leadership  ,545  n. ; 
takes  stump  for  Garfield,  550; 
resigns  Senatorship  and  seeks 
reelection,  550  and  n.;  328, 
384,  401,  410,  433,  496,  498 
and  n.,  499,  511,  519  n.,  537, 
540,  546,  547,  549,  551. 

Constitution,  Fourteenth  Amend 
ment,  seceding  States  refuse 
to  ratify,  241;  act  to  enforce 
provisions  of,  373;  236,  237, 
364,  365. 

Fifteenth  Amendment,  rati 
fied,  335,  368;  273,  363,  365. 

Cooke,  Jay,  &  Co.,  failure  of,  and 
its  consequences,  444  ff. 


572 


INDEX 


Corbin,  Abel  R.,  G.'s  brother- 
in-law,  and  the  "Gold  Con 
spiracy,"  343^.;  274. 

Corbin,  Mrs.  Abel  R.,  348. 

Corinth,  Miss.,  taken  by  Hal- 
leek,  96;  84,  85,  93,  106,  107. 

Cornell,  Alonzo  B.,  549,  550  n. 

Coushatta,  La.,  468,  469. 

Cox,  Jacob  D.,  Secretary  of  the 
Interior,  278,  386;  resigns, 
386-88;  joins  Liberal  Repub 
lican  movement,  389,  412; 
315,  316,  418,  490  and  n. 

Cramer,  Michael  J.,  G.'s  brother- 
in-law,  appointed  Minister  to 
Denmark,  391,  392;  550  n. 

Credit  Mobilier  scandal,  the, 
431  ff. 

Creswell,  John  A.  J.,  Post 
master-General,  278. 

Crittenden,  Thomas  L.,  130. 

Crosby,  Sheriff  (Miss.),  464. 

Cuba,  problem  of,  336  ff. 

Cuban  insurgents,  issuance  of 
proclamation  recognizing  bel 
ligerency  of,  blocked  by  Fish, 
337-39. 

Cumberland,  Army  of  the, 
130  /. 

Currency,  G.'s  views  on,  350, 
445,  446;  inflation  bill,  vetoed 
by  G.,  448-51. 

Curtis,  George  W.,  commends 
G.'s  attack  on  spoils  system, 
399,  403,  404;  103,  380,  384, 
393,  505. 

Gushing,  Caleb,  his  part  in  re 
opening  negotiations  with 
Great  Britain,  302;  nomina 
tion  of,  for  Chief  Justice,  with 
drawn,  494,  495;  310. 

Dana,  Charles  A.,  his  Recollec 
tions  of  the  Civil  War  quoted, 
on  Rawlins  and  G.,  126,  127, 
and  on  G.,  129;  sent  by 
Stanton  "to  spy  out  the 
Western  armies,"  etc.,  126;  a 


factor  in  fixing  G.'s  reputa 
tion,  127;  Lincoln's  support  of 
G.  largely  due  to  his  reports, 
128;  trusted  by  G.,  128;  after 
Vicksburg  suggests  G.  as  Com 
mander-in-chief  of  Armies  of 
the  West,  129;  quoted  on 
Missionary  Ridge,  138,  139, 
and  on  Meade,  157;  119,  132, 
133,  134. 

Dana,  Richard  H.,  Jr.,  quoted 
on  G.  in  Washington,  146, 
147;  291. 

Davis,  Charles  H.,  104. 

Davis,  Justice  David,  candi 
date  for  nomination  of  Liberal 
Republicans  in  1872, 413,  414; 
354,  513,  515  and  n. 

Davis,  Jefferson,  leaves  Rich 
mond,  193;  captured,  200;  84, 
88,  162,  173,  188,  205,  363, 
377,  494. 

Davis,  John  C.  Bancroft,  310, 
337. 

Dawes,  Henry  L.,  379,  397. 

De  Grey,  George  F.  S.  Robin 
son,  Earl,  on  Joint  High  Com 
mission,  309. 

Delano,  Columbus,  Secretary  of 
the  Interior,  387, 389, 490, 491. 

Democratic  Convention  of  1872, 
indorses  Greeley,  421. 

Democrats,  control  House  in 
44th  Congress,  452;  responsi 
ble  for  passage  of  bill  creating 
Electoral  Commission,  511; 
angered  by  its  decision,  514, 
they  denounce  Bradley,  515, 
and  threaten  to  delay  the 
count  by  filibustering,  515, 
516. 

Dent,  Frederick  T.,  G.'s  brother- 
in-law,  25,  390. 

Dent,  Julia,  becomes  G.'s  wife, 
25-27.  And  see  Grant,  Mrs. 
Julia  Dent. 

Dent,  "Colonel,"  G.'s  father-in- 
law,  25,  27,  37,  38,  42. 


INDEX 


573 


Donelson,  Fort,  strategic  posi 
tion  of,  69;  attacked  and 
taken  by  force  under  G.,  72- 
74;  capture  of,  the  first  sub 
stantial  victory  for  the  North, 
75. 

Douglas,  Stephen  A.,  270. 

Douglass,  Dr.,  attends  G.  in  his 
last  illness,  564,  565. 

Dyer,  Mr.,  and  the  whiskey 
frauds,  478  ff. 

Early,  Jubal  A.,  his  raid  in 
July,  1864,  172;  beaten  by 
Sheridan  in  the  Valley,  179, 
180. 

Edmunds,  George  F.,  370,  510, 
511,  513,  542. 

Election  of  1868,  270,  271. 

Election  of  1872,  425,  427. 

Election  of  1876,  dispute  over, 
501  ff. 

Elections  of  Representatives  in 
Congress  placed  under  federal 
control,  371. 

Electoral  College,  vote  of,  in 
1876,  507. 

Electoral  Commission  (1877) 
bill  creating  passes  both 
Houses,  510,  511;  composi 
tion  of,  513;  decision  of,  514, 
515;  G.'s  share  in  creation  of, 
and  securing  acquiescence  in 
its  decision,  519  and  n.,  520. 

Elliott,  Robert,  361. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  291. 

"Enforcement  Acts,"  passed  by 
41st  Congress,  370  ff.  And 
see  Supreme  Court  of  the 
U.S. 

England,  G.'s  reception  in,  534, 
535.  And  see  Great  Britain. 

Erie  Railroad,  342. 

Europe,  G.'s  visit  to  (1877), 
534  ff. 

Evans,  Mr.,  and  the  Belknap 
scandal,  488,  489. 

Evarts,  William  M.,  310,  537. 


Ewell,  Richard  S.,  at  West 
Point  with  G.,  21 ;  quoted,  23; 
193,  194. 

Farragut,  David  G.,  takes  New 
Orleans,  104,  and  Mobile,  177; 
238. 

Fenianism,  294,  297,  307. 

Fenton,  Reuben  E.,  410,  411. 

Ferry,  Thomas  W.,  447. 

Fessenden,  William  P.,  222. 

Field,  Justice  Stephen  J.,  353, 
513. 

Fillmore,  Millard,  535. 

Financial  Affairs.  See  Currency, 
Greenbacks,  Specie  Payments. 

Fish,  Hamilton,  succeeds* Wash- 
burne  as  Secretary  of  State, 
282;  relations  with  Sumner, 
285 ;  his  instructions  to  Motley 
as  Minister  to  Great  Britain, 
299,  300;  censures  Motley  for 
disregarding  instructions,  301 ; 
opens  negotiations  with  Rose, 
302,  303;  agrees  on  basis  of 
negotiations,  306 ;  Sumner's 
note  to,  307,  308;  on  Joint 
High  Commission,  308;  and 
Babcock's  "queor  perform 
ance"  in  San  Domingo,  315; 
his  difficult  position  316; 
resigns,  but  yields  on  San 
Domingo,  317;  demands  Mot 
ley's  resignation,  323,  324;  on 
the  reasons  for  Motley's  re 
moval,  332;  Sumner's  break 
with,  332,  333;  and  the  Cuban 
problem,  336  ff. ;  blocks  issu 
ance  of  proclamation  recogniz 
ing  belligerency  of  insurgents, 
337-39  ;  G.'s  later  relations 
with,  384;  quoted,  406;  as  a 
"dark  horse"  in  1876,  498 
and  n.;  G.'s  high  estimate  of, 
498  n. ;  284,  292,  298,  323,  368, 
516,  522,  523,  524,  525. 

Fish,  James  F.,  556,  557,  560. 

Fish,  Nicholas,  324,  550  n. 


574 


INDEX 


Fishback,  George  W.,  477. 

Fisher,  Fort,  capture  of,  187. 

Fisk,  James,  Jr.,  and  "Black 
Friday,"  342  ff. 

Fiske,  John,  91. 

Five  Forks,  battle  of,  and  its 
effects,  192,  193. 

Florida,  in  disputed  election  of 
1876,  502,  503  and  n.,  504, 
505,  507,  508,  509,  513,  514. 

Floyd,  John  B.,  in  command  at 
Donelson,  72,  73;  hands  over 
command  to  Buckner,  73. 

Foote,  Andrew  H.,  cooperates 
with  G.  in  attack  on  Donel 
son,  70-72;  77. 

Foreign  policy,  G.'s  statement 
of,  in  inaugural,  335,  336. 

Forney,  John  W.,  and  the  quar 
rel  between  G.  and  Sumner, 
317  jf. 

Forrest,  Nathan  B.,  107,  108. 

Foster,  Charles,  471. 

Franco-Prussian  War,  305. 

Franklin,  William  B.,  at  West 
Point  with  G.,  21. 

Franklin,  Tenn.,  battle  of,  182. 

Frederick,  Crown  Prince  of 
Germany  (1877),  535. 

Free  traders,  nominate  Groes- 
beck  for  President  in  1872, 
418. 

Freedmen's  Bureau  bill,  first, 
vetoed  by  Johnson,  235;  sec 
ond,  passed  over  Johnson's 
veto,  236. 

Frelinghuysen,  Frederick  T., 
331,  513,  552,  554. 

Fremont,  John  C.,  commands 
Department  of  the  West,  57; 
reprimands  G.,  63;  his  procla 
mation  of  confiscation  and 
emancipation  in  Missouri, 
modified  by  Lincoln,  67,  68; 
superseded  by  Halleck,  68; 
nominated  for  President  by 
radical  Republicans,  1864, 
172;  38,  59,  61,  62,  66,  270. 


Fry,  James  B.,  quoted  concern 
ing  G.  at  West  Point,  22,  23. 
Frye,  William  P.,  472. 

ambetta,  Leon,  535. 

Garfield,  James  A.,  "almost  a 
free  trader,"  394;  quoted  on 
the  tariff,  394,  395 ;  nominated 
for'  President  in  1880,  546; 
death  of,  551;  433,  505,  513, 
549,  550. 

Garland,  A.  H.,  Governor  of 
Alabama,  462,  463. 

Garland,  Colonel,  on  G.  at 
Chapultepec,  28. 

Garrison,  William  Lloyd,  233. 

Geneva  Arbitration  Board,  its 
membership  and  award,  310. 

Georgetown,  Ohio,  5,  6. 

Georgia,  reorganized  state  gov 
ernment  in,  230;  second  "re 
construction"  in,  363-67; 
secures  "home  rule,"  366;  360. 

Gibbon,  Edward,  68. 

Gillmore,  Quincy  A.,  174. 

Godkin,  Edwin  L.,  quoted  on 
Motley,  292  n.;  380,  382,  398, 
412,  417,  491. 

Godwin,  Parke,  quoted,  on 
nomination  of  Greeley,  417. 

Gold,  manipulation  of,  by 
Gould  and  Fisk,  343  ff. 

"Gold  Conspiracy,"  the,  342. 

Gortchakoff,  Prince,  498  n.,  535. 

Gould,  Jay,  and  "  Black  Friday," 
342  ff. 

Grant,  Frederick  D.,  G.'s  son, 
556,  561. 

Grant,  Hannah  (Simpson),  G.'s 
mother,  4;  some  characteris 
tics  of,  inherited  by  G.,  8,  9; 
G.'s  relations  with,  8,  9. 

Grant,  Jesse  Root,  G.'s  father, 
at  Point  Pleasant,  3,  4;  moves 
to  Georgetown,  O.,  4,  5;  his 
character  and  opinions,  6,  7; 
G.'s  relations  with,  9;  decides 
to  send  G.  to  West  Point,  17; 


INDEX 


575 


on  G.'s  resignation  from  the 
army,  36;  in  prosperous  cir 
cumstances,  39;  his  injudi 
cious  defense  of  G.,  100,  102; 
letters  of  G.  to,  101,  102,  142; 
postmaster  at  Covington,  Ky . , 
391;  11,  13,  18,  43,  46,  52,  53, 
54,  390,  392. 

Grant,  Jesse  R.,  G.'s  son,  534, 
556. 

Grant,  Mrs.  Julia  (Dent),  G.'s 
wife,  37,  191,  217,  348,  391, 
534,  560. 

Grant,  Matthew,  7. 

Grant,  Nellie.  See  Sartoris, 
Nellie  (Grant). 

Grant,  Noah,  G.'s  grandfather, 
7,  8/ 

Grant,  Peter,  G.'s  half-brother, 
8. 

Grant,  Simpson,  G.'s  brother, 
39. 

GRANT,  ULYSSES  S. 
I.  Early  years. 

Birth,  3 ;  first  called  Hirarn 
Ulysses,  4;  entered  at  West 
Point  as  Ulysses  Simpson  by 
mistake,  4;  characteristics  in 
herited  from  his  mother,  9; 
his  knack  with  horses,  9,  10, 
12;  his  persistence,  9;  his 
youth  of  hard  work,  10,  11; 
the  best-traveled  boy  in  the 
village,  11,  12;  anecdotes,  11- 
14;  his  early  schooling,  15,  16; 
certain  traits  of,  15,  16;  re 
fuses  to  follow  his  father's 
trade,  17;  appointed  to  West 
Point,  17,  18;  his  views  there 
on,  17,  18;  quoted  concerning 
his  term  there,  19,  20;  his 
nicknames,  21;  certain  fellow 
cadets  quoted  concerning,  21, 
22,  23;  his  feats  of  horseman 
ship,  22;  his  admiration  for 
Scott  and  C.  F.  Smith,  23,  24; 
his  rank  on  graduation,  24; 
commissioned  in  Fourth  Infan 


try,  24 ;  distaste  for  military 
uniforms,  24,  25;  at  Jefferson 
Barracks,  25,  26;  pays  court 
to  Julia  Dent,  and  marries 
her,  25-27;  joins  Taylor's 
army  of  occupation,  27;  op 
posed  to  Mexican  War,  27,  28; 
his  service  in  the  War,  28-30; 
describes  his  feelings  in  bat 
tle,  29,  30;  his  experience  in 
Mexico  of  great  service  to  him 
in  the  Civil  War,  30;  a  sub 
altern  at  frontier  posts,  30  ff. ; 
ordered  to  California,  32;  his 
quality  shown  on  the  journey 
across  the  Isthmus,  32;  at 
Vancouver  and  Humboldt, 
32,  33;  fondness  for  his  home, 
33;  extent  of  his  addiction  to 
drink,  33;  why  did  he  leave 
the  army?  34 ;  resigns  on  pro 
motion  to  captaincy,  35;  tries 
farming  at  Whitehaven,  37, 
38;  in  real  estate  business  in 
St.  Louis,  38 ;  had  no  political 
affiliations,  38;  clerk  for  his 
brothers  at  Galena,  111.,  39, 
40. 
II.  The  Civil  War  (1). 

On  the  approach  of  war,  41, 
42 ;  drills  Galena  company,  41 ; 
his  views  after  Sumter,  42—44 ; 
at  Springfield,  filling  out  army 
forms,  46 ;  drill-master  at  out 
lying  camps,  46,  47;  offers  his 
services  to  Adjutant-General 
of  the  army,  48,  49;  appointed 
colonel  of  21st  Illinois  Volun 
teers,  50;  first  contact  with 
his  command,  51,  52;  six 
weeks  in  Missouri,  52-55;  his 
first  experience  in  independ 
ent  command,  55,  56;  made 
brigadier-general  by  Lincoln, 
58;  Washburne's  friendship 
for,  58 ;  his  advantageous  posi 
tion,  59,  60;  in  camp  at  Cairo, 
Ky.,  61;  seizes  Paducah,  62; 


576 


INDEX 


warns  Kentucky  legislature,  ' 
62:  reprimanded  by  Fremont, 
63;  attacks  Folk's  camp  at 
Belmont,  63-65;  his  command 
consists  almost  wholly  of  vol 
unteers,  66 ;  his  plan  of  opera 
tions  received  coldly  by  Hal- 
leek,  68,  69 ;  his  plan  described, 
69,  70;  takes  Fort  Henry,  71; 
attacks  Fort  Donelson,  and 
compels  its  surrender,  72—74; 
Buckner  quoted  concerning, 
74;  Sherman's  magnanimity 
toward,  74,  75;  the  military 
idol  of  the  day,  75 ;  markedly 
excluded  by  Halleck  from  com 
mendation  for  Donelson,  76, 
77,  but  is  first  man  promoted 
to  major-general  by  Lincoln, 
77;  charged  by  Halleck  with 
disobedience  to  orders,  and  su 
perseded  by  C.  F.  Smith,  78, 
79;  grudgingly  restored  to  his 
command  by  Halleck,  79, 
who  wrongfully  attributes  re 
sponsibility  to  McClellan,  80, 
81;  his  Memoirs  quoted,  81, 
82;  his  relations  with  Smith, 
82;  his  Memoirs  quoted,  as  to 
best  plan  of  campaign  after 
Donelson,  83 ;  proposes  to  ad 
vance  on  Corinth,  85;  but  is 
forced  to  fight  at  Shiloh,  86- 
88;  his  imperturbability,  87; 
fighting  at  a  disadvantage,  88; 
theory  on  which  he  fought  the 
second  day's  battle,  89,  90; 
called  "Butcher  Grant,"  90; 
why  he  did  not  pursue  the 
beaten  foe,  91,  92;  Northern 
denunciation  of,  after  Shiloh, 
94;  suggests  movement  on 
Vicksburg,  and  is  rebuked  by 
Halleck,  95;  his  strategic 
theory,  95,  96;  Halleck's 
treatment  of,  96,  97;  asks  to 
be  relieved  from  duty,  97; 
Sherman's  advice  to,  97,  98; 


defended  by  Sherman,  98,  and 
bitterly  criticized  by  Harlan, 
98,  99;  restored  to  separate 
command  and  goes  to  Mem 
phis,  99;  succeeds  Halleck  in 
Western  command,  99,  100; 
at  Corinth,  doing  nothing, 
in  summer  of  1862, 100;  letters 
to  Washburne  and  to  his 
father  on  the  attacks  upon 
him,  100,  102;  results  of  his 
strategy  down  to  Shiloh,  104; 
his  original  plan  for  reduction 
of  Vicksburg,  concerted  with 
Sherman,  106,  107;  its  failure, 
107,  108;  McClernand's  am 
bition  and  rivalry  the  main 
obstacle  to  his  success,  109- 
11;  recalls  McClernand,  111: 
ultimate  result  of  his  con 
troversy  with  McClernand, 
112;  relieves  him  of  his  com 
mand  for  breach  of  discipline, 
112,  113;  McClernand's  last 
attack  on,  unsuccessful,  113; 
Sherman  quoted  on,  114;  his 
further  plans  against  Vicks 
burg,  115;  expels  "Jews  as  a 
class"  from  his  department, 
115;  his  order  countermand 
ed  by  Lincoln,  116;  on  trial 
at  Washington,  116;  ignores 
Stanton's  "bribe,"  116;  the 
"wonderful"  Vicksburg  cam 
paign,  117—19;  his  one  set 
back,  118;  Pemberton  sur 
renders  to,  119;  Sherman  gives 
full  credit  to,  for  plan  and  exe 
cution,  119,  120;  his  fame  safe 
thereafter,  120;  his  conviction 
that  he  was  to  be  the  one  to 
end  the  war,  120,  121;  Lin 
coln's  letter  to,  122, 123 ;  made 
a  major-general,  123;  his  rela 
tions  with  Rawlins,  124  ff. ; 
Rawlins's  influence  on,  125, 
126;  his  drinking  habit,  and 
Rawlins's  service  to  him  in 


INDEX 


577 


connection  therewith,  125, 
126;  his  indebtedness  to  Dana, 
and  relations  with  him,  123, 
128;  Young  and  Dana  quoted 
concerning,  128,  129;  his  army 
scattered  after  Vicksburg, 
130;  and  Rosecrans,  131;  dis 
courages  suggestions  that  he 
be  transferred  to  the  East, 
131,  132;  placed  by  Stanton 
in  command  of  new  Depart 
ment  of  the  Mississippi,  133; 
headquarters  at  Chattanoo 
ga,  134,  135;  relations  with 
Thomas,  134;  Chattanooga, 
the  most  completely  planned 
of  all  his  battles,  137,  138; 
Lincoln's  telegram  to,  139; 
"the  coming  man,"  139;  grade 
of  lieutenant-general  revived 
for,  140;  made  General-in- 
Chief  of  all  the  armies  of  the 
U.S.,  140;  letters  to  Wash- 
burne  and  Jesse  Grant  as  to 
his  ambition,  141,  142;  dissi 
pates  Lincoln's  fear  of  the 
"man  on  horseback,"  141, 
142;  remains  at  Nashville 
through  winter  of  1863-64, 
143;  his  fine  letter  to  Sher 
man,  and  Sherman's  reply, 
143,  144;  urged  by  Sherman 
to  remain  in  West,  144. 
III.  The  Civil  War  (2). 

At  Washington  to  receive 
his  commission,  145  ff. ;  his 
first  interview  with  Lincoln, 
145;  pen-pictures  of,  by  R.  H. 
Dana,  146,  Horace  Porter, 
147,  and  Badeau,  147,  148; 
Lincoln's  parting  words  to, 
and  his  reply,  149,  150;  Lin 
coln's  dealings  with,  contrast 
ed  with  those  with  other 
generals,  150,  151;  conditions, 
military  and  political,  North 
and  South,  when  he  took  com 
mand,  152-54;  his  relations 


with  Meade,  154-56;  his  re 
view  of  past  operations,  and 
plan  of  campaign,  157-59; 
aims  to  destroy  Lee's  army, 
159  ff. ;  capture  of  Richmond 
subordinate  thereto,  159;  his 
all-embracing  plan,  160-62; 
underrates  Lee,  162;  the  cam 
paign  in  Virginia,  162  ff.;  the 
Wilderness,  163;  his  reception 
of  bad  news,  163;  "a  dis 
closure  of  his  soul,"  164;  from 
the  Wilderness  to  the  repulse 
at  Cold  Harbor,  165, 166,  168; 
the  frontal  charge  a  mistake, 
165;  "I  propose  to  fight  it 
out  on  this  line  if  it  takes  all 
summer,"  166;  character  of 
his  campaign  changed  after 
Cold  Harbor,  166;  eludes  Lee 
by  flanking  movement  and 
threatens  Petersburg,  167; 
criticized  on  account  of  the 
campaign,  168,  169;  his  aims 
and  achievements  compared 
with  McClellan's,  169,  170; 
quoted  by  J.  R.  Young,  170  n. ; 
his  plans  foiled  by  blunders  of 
Butler  and  Smith,  170, 171 ;  at 
City  Point  in  winter  of  1864- 
65,  172;  his  troubles  with  his 
subordinates,  174 ;  the  Butler- 
Smith  dispute,  174,  175;  why 
he  relieved  Smith  from  duty, 
174,  175;  relieves  Butler  after 
Fort  Fisher,  175,  176;  or 
ders  Sheridan  to  transform 
Meade's  cavalry  into  a  fight 
ing  force,  177,  178;  sends 
Sheridan  against  Early,  179, 
180;  quoted  on  Sheridan,  180, 
181;  approves  Sherman's  plan 
for  marching  to  the  sea,  181, 
182;  fails  to  appreciate 
Thomas,  183;  chafes  over 
Thomas's  failure  to  attack 
Hood  at  Nashville,  183-85; 
recommends  Thomas's  ap- 


578 


INDEX 


pointment  as  a  major-general 
after  the  battle,  185;  momen 
tarily  outdazzled  by  Sherman, 
186;  their  cordial  relations, 
186;  events  shape  the  success 
of  his  grand  strategy,  187; 
his  headquarters  at  City 
Point,  188-91;  leaves  City 
Point,  191;  occupies  Peters 
burg,  192,  193;  asks  Lee  to 
surrender,  194;  their  corre 
spondence,  194—96;  meets 
Lee  at  Appomattox  Court- 
House,  196  ff.;  the  terms  of 
surrender,  197  and  n.,  198, 
199;  informs  Stanton  of  the 
surrender,  199;  a  tower  of 
strength  in  Washington  after 
Lincoln's  death,  200;  saves 
Sherman  from  humiliation  in 
matter  of  Johnston's  surren 
der,  201;  reviews  the  army, 
201;  disbanding  the  armies, 
202. 

IV.  In    Johnson's    Adminis 
tration. 

Distrusts  Seward,  103;  re 
lations  with  Stanton,  203, 
217,  227,  260  n.;  opposes 
Johnson's  threat  to  try  Lee 
for  treason,  203-05;  urges  in 
tervention  to  drive  Maximil 
ian  from  Mexico,  206,  207; 
Johnson  seeks  to  make  him 
his  friend,  217;  his  non-com 
mittal  policy,  218;  his  mission 
to  the  South,  and  his  report, 
220-22 ;  his  troubles  in  Wash 
ington,  226,  227;  a  giant 
among  pygmies,  227;  if  he  had 
been  in  supreme  control,  227, 
228;  his  Personal  History 
quoted  on  negro  suffrage,  228, 
and  on  Reconstruction,  229; 
forced  by  circumstances  to 
support  wholesale  negro  suf 
frage,  229,  457;  his  "swing 
around  the  circle"  with  John 


son,  and  its  effect,  238,  239; 
letter  of,  to  Sheridan  on  con 
ditions  in  South,  239,  240; 
quoted  as  to  his  actions  during 
the  trouble  between  Johnson 
and  Stanton,  242,  243;  in 
duces  Johnson  not  to  send 
troops  to  Baltimore,  243,  244; 
ordered  to  Mexico  by  John 
son,  but  declines  to  go,  244- 
47;  his  justification,  245,  246; 
Sherman  quoted  on  the  sub 
ject,  246,  247;  and  the  Recon 
struction  Act,  249;  has  lit 
tle  influence  on  legislation, 
251;  protests  against  removal 
of  Stanton  and  Sheridan, 
251-53;  uncertainty  as  to  his 
attitude,  254,  256;  appointed 
Acting  Secretary  of  War,  254, 
255 ;  G.  Welles  quoted  on,  255 ; 
his  taking  the  office  a  mistake, 
256,  257;  his  action  criti 
cized  in  North,  256,  258 ;  breaks 
with  Johnson  over  removal  of 
Sheridan,  257,  258;  relin 
quishes  office  to  Stanton,  259 ; 
Stanton's  discourtesy  to,  260; 
question  of  veracity  between 
Johnson  and,  261  ff.;  his 
meeting  with  the  Cabinet, 
Jan.  14,  1868,  263-65;  his 
correspondence  with  Johnson 
challenges  the  latter's  verac 
ity,  265-68;  refuses  to  hold 
further  intercourse  with  John 
son  or  his  Cabinet,  268;  nomi 
nated  for  President  by  Repub 
licans,  270,  271,  and  elected, 
271;  in  seclusion  between 
nomination  and  election,  272. 
V.  President. 

Confronted  by  critical  con 
ditions  in  the  South,  273;  re 
fuses  to  ride  with  Johnson  on 
inauguration  day,  274;  his 
first  inaugural  written  wholly 
by  himself,  274,  275;  his  Cab- 


INDEX 


579 


inet,  275-78;  asks  Senate  to 
repeal  the  law  making  Stewart 
ineligible  for  Treasury,  276; 
brief  review  of  his  adminis 
tration,  278-80;  selects  Fish 
as  Secretary  of  State,  281; 
Seward's  criticism  of  the  ap 
pointment,  281,  282;  J.  Bige- 
low  quoted  on  the  Cabinet, 
282,  283;  relations  with  Sum- 
ner,  284  ff. ;  mental  and  physi 
cal  contrast  between  Sumner 
and,  289,  290;  believes  in  ex 
pansion  toward  the  South, 
297-,  298;  quoted  on  Motley's 
instructions  and  his  disregard 
of  them,  301 ;  gives  Fish  a  free 
hand  with  Great  Britain,  304 ; 
his  first  annual  message,  304; 
his  second  annual  message, 
305;  approves  of  Fish's  ignor 
ing  Sumner  in  renewed  ne 
gotiations,  308  ;  entitled  to 
credit  for  establishing  princi 
ple  of  arbitration  of  interna 
tional  disputes,  311;  Baez  of 
San  Domingo  makes  over 
tures  to,  313;  sends  Babcock 
to  San  Domingo  to  report  on 
Samana  Bay,  314,  315;  his 
attitude  on  Babcock's  action, 
315,  316;  induces  Fish  to  favor 
annexation,  316,  317;  seeks 
ratification  of  treaty  of  an 
nexation  which  results  from 
Babcock's  second  mission, 
317  ff.]  his  attempt  to  win 
Sumner,  and  the  ensuing 
quarrel,  317-20;  charged  by 
Sumner  with  being  intoxi 
cated  at  the  interview,  319; 
his  persistent  attempts  to  in 
fluence  Senators,  320-23,  321 
n. ;  angered  by  defeat  of  treaty, 
323;  was  Motley's  removal  an 
act  of  reprisal  against  Sum 
ner?  323,  324,  331,  332;  why 
Hoar  was  asked  to  resign,  325 ; 


revives  San  Domingo  issue, 
326;  Sumner's  violent  attack 
on,  327,  328;  his  message 
transmitting  report  of  San 
Domingo  Committee,  328, 
329;  A.  D.  White  quoted  on, 
329,  330;  his  purpose  in  re 
gard  to  San  Domingo  justified 
by  events,  330;  his  views  on 
acquisition  of  territory,  331; 
Fish's  comment  on  his  toler 
ance  of  honest  difference  of 
opinion,  as  applied  to  Sum 
ner,  332,  333;  Sumner's  con 
tinued  denunciation  of,  333; 
his  own  comment  on  his  rela 
tions  with  Sumner,  334;  his 
inaugural  address,  335,  336; 
his  foreign  policy,  335;  pro 
poses  to  recognize  belligerency 
of  Cuba  n  insurgents,  but  is  dis 
suaded  by  Fish,  337-39;  his 
declaration  on  public  credit, 
339,  340;  his  connection  with 
Gould  and  "Black  Friday," 
through  Corbin,  343  ff. ;  his 
recommendations  concerning 
the  currency,  350;  appoints 
Strong  and  Bradley  to  Su 
preme  Court,  354-56 ;  charged 
with  "packing"  the  Court, 
355;  problem  of  the  negro 
and  the  South,  357  ff.;  con 
ditions  that  he  had  to  meet, 
362  ff. ;  his  action  in  Georgia, 
364,  and  No.  Carolina,  367; 
his  special  messages  on  ratifi 
cation  of  15th  Amendment, 
368,  369,  and  on  report  of 
committee  to  investigate  af 
fairs  in  South,  372;  acts  in 
So.  Carolina  under  Ku-Klux 
Act,  374;  rehabilitation  of 
seceding  States  due  to  his 
firmness  in  executing  laws,  375; 
signs  general  amnesty  bill,  375; 
S.  Bowles  quoted  on,  379; 
Motley  and  Holmes  quoted  on, 


580 


INDEX 


380,  381;  why  he  failed  to 
retain  the  liking  of  men  of 
their  type,  382 ;  his  ingenuous 
ness  in  politics,  382 ;  his  indif 
ference  to  literature,  383,  384; 
his  favorite  companions,  384; 
early  signs  of  party  disaffec 
tion  with,  and  their  causes, 
385-89;  deterioration  of  his 
Cabinet,  389,  390;  his  military 
aides,  390;  his  many  relatives, 
390,  391;  Sumner's  charge  of 
"nepotism,"  391,  392;  freely 
accepts  gifts,  392;  Rawlins's 
death  a  loss  to,  393;  C.  E. 
Norton  quoted,  on  his  needs 
in  the  way  of  counselors,  393 ; 
his  messages  of  1870  and  1871 
quoted,  on  the  tariff,  396,  397; 
his  civil-service  record,  398  ff. ; 
commended  by  Curtis,  399, 
400, 403, 404 ;  urges  appropria 
tions  for  Civil  Service  Com 
mission,  400;  abandons  the 
attempt  at  reform,  402,  403; 
his  interest  in  the  Indians, 
404,  405;  quoted,  on  the  over- 
righteous,  405,  406;  dissatis 
faction  with,  the  only  bond 
among  Liberal  Republicans, 
410,  413;  their  "Address"  an 
undiluted  denunciation  of, 
418,  419;  renominated  by 
Republicans,  420;  Sumner's 
May  31  speech  on,  421,  422, 
423;  cry  of  "Csesarism" 
raised  against,  423,  457;  de 
fended  by  Carpenter,  423, 
424;  reflected,  425;  meaning 
of  result  of  election,  427,  428; 
his  two  faults,  428;  signs  sal 
ary  increase  bill,  436;  Butler's 
unfortunate  influence  over, 
437,  438;  his  leniency  to  Rich 
ardson  in  matter  of  Sanborn 
contracts,  440,  441 ;  refuses  to 
inflate  currency  in  panic  of 
1873,  444,  445;  his  annual 


message  of  1873  quoted  on 
financial  matters,  446,  447; 
vetoes  inflation  bill,  448-51; 
his  action  commended,  451; 
in  annual  message  of  1874 
urges  resumption,  452-54; 
quoted  on  the  problem  of  the 
South,  458,  459;  his  special 
message  on  Arkansas  troubles, 
462;  refuses  to  proclaim  mar 
tial  law  in  Mississippi,  464, 
465;  his  special  message  on 
Louisiana  troubles,  468;  pro 
tects  Kellogg  government 
there,  469;  Sherman  quoted 
on  his  honesty,  473;  his  loy 
alty  to  his  friends,  worthy  or 
unworthy,  474 ;  relations  with 
Babcock,  475;  compromised 
by  Babcock  in  whiskey 
frauds,  476  ff. ;  angered  by 
"persecution"  of  Babcock, 
480;  charged  with  intervening 
to  protect  him,  481,  482;  tes 
tifies  in  his  favor,  483,  484; 
relations  with  Babcock  after 
his  acquittal,  485;  prejudiced 
against  Bristow,  485,  486,  who 
resigns  Treasury  portfolio, 
487;  accepts  Belknap's  resig 
nation  "with  regret"  after 
his  impeachment,  489,  490; 
appoints  Chandler  Secretary 
of  the  Interior,  491;  charac 
ter  of  his  appointments  to 
Supreme  Court,  492 ;  his  vari 
ous  nominations  for  Chief 
Justice  to  succeed  Chase,  493- 
95;  finally  appoints  Waite, 
495;  his  attitude  on  a  third 
term  in  1876,  497;  quoted  on 
the  candidates  for  the  succes 
sion,  498  n. ;  takes  measures  to 
keep  the  peace  after  the  elec 
tion,  503,  504;  sends  "Visiting 
Statesmen"  to  Louisiana, 
505;  strives  to  bring  about  a 
peaceful  settlement,  509,  510; 


INDEX 


581 


approves  Electoral  Commis 
sion  bill,  511,  512;  his  atti 
tude  a  powerful  factor  in  bring 
ing  about  a  peaceful  solution, 
519  and  n.,  520;  his  adminis 
tration  reviewed,  521  ff. ;  his 
firm  and  consistent  foreign 
policy,  522,  523;  the  Virgin- 
ius  case,  523-25;  his  messages 
and  second  inaugural  quoted, 
as  to  his  policies,  525—27;  up 
holds  American  rights  abroad, 
527,  528;  urges  building  up  of 
an  American  merchant  ma 
rine,  528,  529;  on  the  perils  of 
an  ignorant,  foreign-born  elec 
torate,  529,  530;  reduction  of 
public  debt,  530,  531;  his  ad 
ministration,  in  constructive 
achievement,  second  only  to 
Washington's,  532. 
VI.  Last  Years. 

His  trip  around  the  world, 
534  ff. ;  J.  R.  Lowell  quoted  on, 
536;  his  friends  out  of  credit 
with  Hayes's  Administration, 
537;  beginning  of  third-term 
talk,  538;  his  return  from 
abroad  premature,  539;  goes 
to  Mexico  and  Cuba,  539;  the 
engineers  of  the  third-term 
plan,  539,  540;  quoted  as  to 
his  attitude  toward  the  plan, 
540,  541 ;  the  Republican  Con 
vention  of  1880,  542  ff.-t  his 
forces  led  by  Conkling,  544, 
545  and  n.;  his  friends  stand 
by  him  to  the  end,  546 ;  his 
feeling  as  to  the  result,  547, 
548;  supports  the  ticket,  550; 
sympathizes  with  Conkling  in 
his  row  with  Garfield,  550, 
551 ;  relations  with  President 
Arthur,  552,  553;  the  Fitz- 
John  Porter  case,  553;  com 
missioner  to  negotiate  com 
mercial  treaty  with  Mexico, 
554,  555;  had  fallen  in  public 


esteem,  and  why,  555;  the 
Grant  &  Ward  disaster,  556- 
59;  loses  all  his  property, 
559;  is  helped  by  friends,  559, 
560;  writes  the  story  of  his 
battles  for  the  Century,  561, 
followed  by  his  Personal 
Memoirs,  561,  562,  563,  564; 
Congress  passes  bill  under 
which  he  is  restored  to  rank  of 
lieutenant-general  (March  3, 
1885),  563;  his  commission 
signed  by  Cleveland,  563;  his 
death,  564;  his  letter  to  Dr. 
Douglass,  564,  565. 

Grant,  Ulysses  S.,  Jr.,  and 
Grant  &  Ward,  556  ff. 

Grant  &  Ward,  556  ff. 

Great  Britain,  outstanding  dif 
ferences  with,  293;  the  John 
son  -  Clarendon  Convention, 
294  ff. ;  violently  attacked  by 
Sumner,  295,  296;  Fish's  in 
structions  to  Motley,  299, 
300;  reopening  of  negotiations 
with,  303  ff.,  306  ff.;  Sumner 
insists  on  withdrawal  of,  from 
Canada,  307,  308;  the  Joint 
High  Commission,  308,  309; 
negotiations  with,  influence 
handling  of  Cuban  problem, 
337,  338. 

Greeley,  Horace,  on  Missouri 
Liberal  Republicans,  410;  his 
dissatisfaction  with  G.'s  ad 
ministration  leads  to  his  in 
dorsement  of  Liberal  Repub 
lican  movement,  411;  nomi 
nated  by  Liberal  Republicans 
for  President,  415 ;  unreason  of 
his  nomination,  415,  416;  di 
vers  comments  on  it,  416, 417; 
indorsed  by  Democrats,  421; 
had  no  chance  of  election, 
422 ;  his  overwhelming  defeat, 
425,  and  death,  426;  395,  413, 
427,  551. 

Greenbacks,     retired    by     Me- 


582 


INDEX 


Cullough,  444,  445;  G.  refuses 
to  reissue  in  1873,  446;  pro 
posals  in  Congress  to  reissue, 
447;  bill  to  authorize  maxi 
mum  of  $400,000,000  vetoed 
by  G.,  448-51. 

Grier,  Justice,  354. 

Grimes,  James  W.,  criticizes  G.'s 
generalship,  in  Senate,  169. 

Groesbeck,  William  S.,  nomi 
nated  for  President  by  free 
traders  in  1872,  418. 

Hague  Tribunal,  the,  311. 

Halleck,  Henry  W.,  supersedes 
Fremont,  68 ;  his  character,  68 ; 
and  G.'s  plan  of  operations, 
68, 69;  after  Donelson,  praises 
everybody  but  G.,  76,  77; 
reprimands  G.,  and  puts 
Smith  over  his  head,  78,  79; 
grudgingly  restores  G.  to  his 
command,  79;  attributes  mis 
understanding  to  McClellan, 
80,  81;  G.'s  comment  on  his 
action,  81,  82 ;  his  plan  of  cam 
paign  after  Donelson,  84; 
his  humorous  "capture"  of 

1  Corinth,  93;  difference  be 
tween  his  strategic  theory  and 
G.'s,  95,  96;  his  treatment  of 
G.,  96,  97;  his  reply  to  Lin 
coln  as  to  responsibility  for 
Shiloh,  97 ;  made  commander- 
in-chief,  vice  McClellan,  99, 
100;  and  G.'s  Vicksburg  cam 
paign,  117  ff. ;  his  prejudice 
against  G.  overcome  by  Vicks 
burg,  121;  59,  71,  72,  83,  94, 
105,  111,  131,  134,  136,  137, 
150,  165,  166,  167,  184,  226. 

Halstead,  Murat,  412,  414. 

Hamer,  Thomas  L.,  appoints  G. 
to  West  Point,  17. 

Hamilton,  Schuyler,  at  West 
Point  with  G.,  21. 

Hamlin,  Hannibal,  494. 

Hampton,  Wade,  518. 


Hancock,  Winfield  S.,  247,  549. 

Hardee,  William  J.,  at  West 
Point  with  G.,  21;  quoted, 
23. 

Harlan,  James,  criticizes  G.  in 
Senate,  98,  99;  321. 

Harris,  guerrilla  officer,  54,  55. 

Harrison,  Benjamin,  492. 

Haworth,  The  Hayes-Tilden  Dis 
puted  Election,  quoted,  509, 
510. 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  291. 

Hay,  John,  214. 

Hayes,  Rutherford  B.,  nomi 
nated  for  President  in  1876, 
498,  499;  dispute  as  to  his 
election,  501  ff.;  has  majority 
of  one  in  Electoral  College, 
507;  declared  elected,  516; 
was  he  a  fraudulent  incum 
bent?  517,  520,  withdraws 
troops  from  Charleston,  518; 
pledged  against  a  second  term, 
537,  but  could  not  have  been 
reflected,  537;  455,  508,  509, 
511,  546,  547. 

Hayti,  312. 

Heintzelmann,  Samuel  P.,  59. 

Henderson,  John  B.,  and  the 
whiskey  frauds,  478  ff. 

Henry,  Fort,  strategic  position 
of,  69;  taken  by  G.,  71. 

Hepburn  vs.  Griswold  (Legal 
Tender  case),  352-54;  over 
ruled,  355. 

Hewitt,  Abram  S.,  501,  505,  506, 
510. 

Hillyer,  Captain,  121. 

Hoadley,  George,  412. 

Hoar,  Ebenezer  Rockwood,  ap 
pointed  Attorney  -  General, 
277 ;  his  difficulties  with  Sena 
tors,  277;  his  nomination  to 
Supreme  Court  rejected,  277, 
325;  on  Joint  High  Commis 
sion,  309;  his  resignation  as 
Attorney-General  requested, 
and  why,  325,  326,  386,  388, 


INDEX 


583 


389;  accused  of  having  as 
sisted  in  "packing"  the  Su 
preme  Court,  355, 356 ;  quoted 
on  G.'s  honesty,  485  w.;  354 
438,  492,  493. 

Hoar,  George  F.,  quoted  in  de 
fense  of  his  brother,  355,  356, 
and  on  corruption  in  public 
life,  429,  430;  the  victim  of 
his  own  hyperbole,  430;  his 
Autobiography  quoted  on  G.'s 
anger  with  Sumner,  438; 
quoted  on  massacre  at  Col- 
fax,  468;  439,  472,  513,  537. 

Holden,  Governor  of  North 
Carolina,  367,  368. 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  Life  of 
Motley,  quoted,  303;  quoted 
on  G.,  381;  291. 

Hood,  John  B.,  supersedes 
Johnston,  173;  beaten  by 
Schofield  at  Franklin,  182; 
before  Nashville,  182-84; 
beaten  by  Thomas  there,  185; 
177,  181. 

Hooker,  Joseph,  replies  to  Stan- 
ton's  "  bribe"  by  losing  Chan- 
cellorsville,  116;  at  Lookout 
Mountain,  138;  59,  131,  132, 
137,  150,  160,  164. 

Hooper,  Samuel,  383. 

Howard,  Oliver  OM  160. 

Howe,  Samuel  G.,  328. 

Hunt,  Justice  Ward,  492. 

Hunter,  David,  59,  71. 

Hunter,  R.  M.  T.,  at  City  Point, 
188. 

Hunton,  Eppa,  513. 

Hurlbut,  Stephen  S.,  85,  109. 

Immigrants,  literacy  test  for,  be 
fore  naturalization,  urged  by 
G.,  529,  530. 

Impeachment  of  President  John 
son,  early  talk  of,  comes  to 
nothing,  259;  House  passes 
resolutions  of,  259,  269;  trial 
in  Senate,  269  ff. 


Indians,    the,   G.'s  interest  in, 

404 ff.;  335. 
Inflation.     See    Currency    and 

Greenbacks. 
Ingalls,   Rufus,  at  West  Point 

with  G.,  21;  G.'s  superior  in 

his  own  field,  162. 
Ireland,     American     sympathy 

with,  294. 
Island  No.  10,  99,  104. 

Jackson,  Andrew,  398. 

Jackson,  Claiborne,  47,  57. 

Jackson,  Thomas  J.  ("Stone 
wall"),  in  Mexican  War,  30. 

Jackson,  Miss.,  taken  by  G.,  118. 

James,  Thomas  L.,  Postmaster- 
General,  550  n. 

Jewell,  Marshall,.  Postmaster- 
General,  asked  to  resign,  487. 

Johnson,  Andrew,  nominated 
for  Vice-President,  172;  his 
threat  to  try  Lee  for  treason 
opposed  by  G. ,  203-05 ;  denies 
amnesty  to  Lee  and  Long- 
street,  205  and  n. ;  declines  to 
interfere  in  Mexico,  207;  his 
accession  regarded  in  North 
as  a  Godsend,  212,  213;  his 
swift  change  of  policy,  213, 
214;  his  proclamation  of  am 
nesty,  215,  216;  his  character 
and  defects,  215-17, 219;  tries 
to  win  G.'s  friendship,  217; 
favors  qualified  negro  suffrage, 
218,  219 ;  his  early  course  com 
mendable,  218;  sends  G.  on 
mission  to  Southern  States, 
220;  alienates  both  North  and 
South,  227,  228;  his  plan 
of  Reconstruction  apparently 
approved  in  North,  230,  231; 
might  have  won  by  a  concilia 
tory  course,  231,  232;  his 
message  of  Dec.,  1865,  gener 
ally  approved,  234;  Summer's 
criticism  of,  234;  vetoes 
Freedmen's  Bureau  bill,  235; 


584 


INDEX 


his  violent  speech  of  Feb.  22., 
1866,  235,  236;  his  vetoes  of 
Civil  Rights  bill  and  new 
Freedmen's  Bureau  bill  over 
ridden,  236;  troubles  with 
Congress  due  chiefly  to  per 
sonal  considerations,  237;  his 
"swing  around  the  circle," 
238,  239;  his  relations  with 
Stanton  badly  strained,  239; 
his  fatuous  opposition  to  Con 
gress  and  the  result,  240,  241 ; 
his  influence  responsible  for  re 
fusal  of  seceding  States  to  rat 
ify  14th  Amendment,  241;  G. 
out  of  sympathy  with,  242, 
250;  orders  G.  to  Mexico, 
245-47;  sends  Sherman  in 
G.'s  place,  247;  his  veto  of 
Reconstruction  Act  overrid 
den,  249;  removes  Republi 
can  placemen,  249 ;  his  veto  of 
Tenure  of  Office  Act  overrid 
den,  249;  and  the  measures  of 
the  40th  Congress,  251;  his 
breach  with  Stanton  com 
plete,  251;  tells  G.  of  his  pur 
pose  to  oust  Stanton  and  dis 
place  Sheridan,  251,  252; 
asks  Stanton  to  resign,  253; 
suspends  Stanton  and  ap 
points  G.  ad  interim,  254; 
breaks  with  G.  over  Sheri 
dan's  removal,  257,  258;  his 
removal  of  Stanton  leads  to 
impeachment,  258,  259,  269; 
resents  G.'s  surrender  of  sec 
retaryship,  261;  question  of 
veracity  between  G.  and, 
261  ff.\  his  interpretation  of 
Tenure  of  Office  Act,  261; 
fails  to  understand  G.,  263; 
G.  breaks  off  intercourse  with, 
268;  endeavors  to  get  rid  of 
Stanton,  269;  wishes  to  test 
Tenure  of  Office  Act  in  courts, 
269;  acquitted  on  impeach 
ment  trial,  269,  270;  recom 


mends  annexation  of  San 
Domingo,  313;  suggests  re 
pudiation  of  interest  on  debt, 
341;  260  n.,  274,  279,  293, 
327,  372,  408,  476. 

Johnson,  Reverdy,  Minister  to 
Great  Britain,  negotiates  John 
son  -  Clarendon  Convention, 
293,  294. 

Johnson-Clarendon  Convention, 
terms  of,  294;  ratification  de 
feated  in  Senate,  295;  299, 
300,  304. 

Johnston,  Albert  Sidney,  in 
Mexican  War,  30;  commands 
Confederate  troops  west  of 
Alleghanies,  69;  commands  at 
Shiloh,  84,  85,  and  is  killed 
there,  88;  effect  of  his  death, 
88;  72,  76. 

Johnston,  Joseph  E.,  defeats 
Rosecrans  at  Chickamauga, 
130;  forced  back  to  Atlanta 
by  Sherman,  172;  superseded 
by  Hood,  173;  difficulty  as  to 
terms  of  his  surrender  to  Sher 
man,  201;  118,  131,  160,  161, 
170  n.,  185,  191,  193. 

Johnston,  William  P.,  his  Life 
of  A.  S.  Johnston  quoted,  70. 

Joint  High  Commission  (1871), 
its  powers,  308;  membership 
of,  308,  309;  submits  Treaty 
of  Washington,  309. 

Jomini,  Baron  Henry,  54. 

Jones,  Mr.,  Minister  to  Belgium, 
321  n. 

Juarez,  President  of  Mexico,  247. 

Julian,  George  W.,  quoted  on 
accession  of  Johnson,  213; 
505,  506. 

Kasson,  John  A.,  505. 
Kearney,  Denis,  544. 
Kearny,  Philip,  59. 
Kellogg,  William  P.  (Louisiana), 

466,  467,  469,  471,  472. 
Kentucky    Legislature,    adopts 


INDEX 


585 


resolution  favorable  to  Union, 
62. 

Keyes,  Erasmus  D.,  59. 

Kirk,  Colonel,  367. 

"Kirk's  Raid,"  367,  368. 

Ku-Klux  Act.  See  "  Enforce 
ment  Acts." 

Ku-Klux-Klan,  358,  361  and  n.f 
367,  371,  373,  374,  375,  463. 

Laird,  Mr.,  builder  of  the  Ala 
bama,  294. 

Lee,  Francis,  quoted  on  G.  at 
Chapultepec,  28. 

Lee,  Robert  E.,  in  Mexican  War, 
30;  (in  Civil  War}  responsibil 
ity  of,  limited  to  his  own  com 
mand,  162;  G.  underrates  his 
quality,  162;  precipitates  bat 
tle  of  the  Wilderness,  163; 
forced  back  to  Cold  Harbor, 
where  G.  is  repulsed,  165, 166; 
never  face  to  face  with  G. 
again,  166;  his  army  eluded 
by  G.  in  flanking  movement, 
167;  his  losses  in  the  Wilder 
ness  campaign,  169;  tries  to 
break  through  lines  at  Peters 
burg  and  join  Johnston,  191; 
evacuates  Petersburg,  192, 
193;  at  Jetersville,  193;  asked 
by  G.  to  surrender,  194;  cor 
respondence  with  G.,  194-96; 
their  meeting  at  Appomattox, 
196  ff.\  accepts  G.'s  terms, 
197-99;  their  further  conver 
sation,  200;  threat  of  trial  for 
treason,  opposed  by  G.,  203- 
05;  denied  amnesty,  205  and 
n.;  99,  142,  143,  145,  153,  155, 
156,  161,  169,  170  and  n.,  171, 
172,  173,  178,  179,  181,  183, 
187,  188,  201. 

Legal  Tender  Act,  held  uncon 
stitutional  by  Supreme  Court 
(1869),  352-54;  held  constitu 
tional  in  1872,  355.  And  see 
Supreme  Court. 


L 'Enfant,  Major,  475. 

Liberal  Republican  movement 
of  1872,  originates  in  Mis 
souri,  409;  history  of,  410  /.; 
principal  figures  in,  411-13; 
absurdity  of  nomination  of 
Greeley,  415,  416. 

Liberal  Republicans,  summoned 
to  meet  at  Cincinnati,  410; 
convention  of,  how  consti 
tuted,  411;  candidates  for 
nomination  of,  413,  414;  nom 
inate  Greeley,  415  ff.;  their 
address  to  the  people,  418, 
419;  their  platform  and  its 
tariff  "straddle,"  419,  420. 

Li  Hung  Chang,  536,  537. 

Lieber,  Francis,  212. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  appoints  G. 
brigadier-general,  58,  59;  his 
modification  of  Fremont's 
emancipation  proclamation 
displeases  North,  67,  68;  ap 
points  Halleck  in  Fremont's 
place,  68;  first  promotes  G. 
alone  for  capture  of  Donelson, 
77;  compels  G.'s  restoration 
to  his  command,  79;  and  the 
responsibility  for  Shiloh,  96, 
97;  his  characterization  of  G., 
99;  makes  Halleck  comman- 
der-in-chief,  99;  his  patron 
age  of  McClernand  and  Logan, 
109,  110;  conditionally  in 
dorses  McClernand's  Missis 
sippi  plan  of  campaign,  110, 
111;  denies  McClernand's  re 
quest  for  court  of  inquiry,  1 13 ; 
and  Swett's  quarrel  with  G., 
116;  his  letter  to  G.  after 
Vicksburg,  122,  123;  makes 
G.  major-general,  123;  Dana's 
reports  largely  responsible  for 
his  clinging  to  G.,  128;  his 
telegram  to  G.  after  Chatta 
nooga,  139;  makes  G.  lieu 
tenant-general  and  comman- 
der-in-chief,  140;  fears  advent 


586 


INDEX 


of  man  on  horseback,  141 ;  his 
fears  dissipated,  142;  G.'s 
first  interview  with,  145;  his 
last  words  to  G.  leaving  for 
the  front,  149,  150;  his  deal 
ings  with  G.  and  with  other 
generals,  150,  151;  Northern 
discontent  with  his  conduct  of 
the  war,  154;  telegraphs  G. 
after  Cold  Harbor,  167,  168; 
quoted  on  G.,  168;  renomi- 
nated  in  1864,  172;  calls  for 
500,000  volunteers,  173;  the 
famous  memorandum  of  Au 
gust  23,  173;  and  the  Smith- 
Butler  row,  175;  quoted,  179, 
180;  congratulates  Sherman, 
186;  meets  Peace  Commission 
at  City  Point,  188-90;  pro 
posed  message  to  Congress 
urging  compensation  to  slave 
owners,  withheld,  190,  191; 
murder  of,  200,  212,  213;  his 
probable  course  in  Recon 
struction,  208,  209;  vetoes 
Reconstruction  Act  of  1864, 
209,  210;  his  plans  opposed 
by  radicals,  210,  211;  his 
speech  of  April  11,  1865,  211, 
212;  Sumner's  failure  to  un 
derstand,  285,  286;  33,  41,  66, 
108,  126,  130,  177,  181,  183, 
191,  193,  219,  227,  229,  232, 
398,  466,  502. 

Lodge,  Henry  Cabot,  Early 
Memories,  quoted  on  Sum- 
ner,  288,  289. 

Logan,  John  A.,  ordered  to  re 
place  Thomas  at  Nashville, 
185;  favors  inflation,  447, 
449,  450;  384,  423,  496,  513, 
537,  540,  548. 

Longfellow,  Henry  W.,  291. 

Longstreet,  James,  at  West 
Point  with  G.,  21;  quoted  on 
G.  at  Molino  del  Rey,  29; 
denied  amnesty  by  Johnson, 
205  n. 


Lookout  Mountain,  138. 

Louisiana,  reorganized  govern 
ment  of,  not  recognized  by 
Congress,  210;  conditions  in, 
under  G.,  359;  (1872-1875), 
466-72;  in  disputed  election 
of  1876,  502,  503  n.,  504,  505, 
506,  507,  508,  509;  375,  514. 

Louisville  Courier- Journal,  413. 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  quoted, 
67,  284,  536;  291,  380,  499. 

Lynch,  John  R.,  361. 

Lyon,  Nathaniel,  47,  59. 

McClellaa,  George  B.,  at  West 
Point  with  G.,  21 ;  his  aims  and 
achievement  contrasted  with 
G.'s,  169;  clamor  in  North  for 
G.'s  supersession  by,  173;  57, 
59,  65,  70,  77,  80,  81,  99,  131, 
150,  151,  153,  183. 

McClernand,  John  A.,  super 
sedes  Sherman,  108;  his  am 
bition  and  jealousy  of  G., 
109  ff. ;  as  a  Douglas  Demo 
crat,  courted  by  Lincoln,  110; 
his  self-praise  and  attacks  on 
G.,  110;  his  plan  for  the  Mis 
sissippi  River  campaign  con 
ditionally  approved  by  Lincoln, 
110,  111;  recalled  by  G.,  com 
plains  to  Lincoln,  111;  his  in 
subordination,  112 ;  relieved  of 
command  for  breach  of  dis 
cipline,  112, 113;  attacks  G.  in 
request  for  court  of  inquiry, 
113;  Sherman  quoted  on,  113, 
114;  51,  52,  59,  64,  73,  77,  85, 
86,  88,  94,  115,  118,  298. 

McClure,  Alexander  K.,  412. 

McCook,  Alexander  M.,  130. 

McCrary,  George  W.,  509. 

McCullough,  Hugh,  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury,  greenbacks 
retired  by,  444,  445,  447;  341, 
351. 

Macdonald,  Sir  John  A.,  on 
Joint  High  Commission,  309. 


INDEX 


587 


McDonald,  Mr.,  and  the  whis 
key  frauds,  478  and  n.,  482  n. 

McDowell,  Irvin,  57,  59. 

McEnery,  S.  J.  (Louisiana), 467. 

MacMahon,  Marie-E-P-M.  de, 
539. 

McPherson,  James  B.,  G.'s 
warm  praise  of,  143;  113,  144, 
423. 

Marine  Bank  of  Brooklyn,  and 
the  failure  of  Grant  &  Ward, 
556  jf. 

Marsh,  Caleb  P.,  488,  489. 

Marshall,  Chief  Justice  John, 
353. 

Massachusetts,  refuses  assent  to 
Johnson's  policy,  231. 

Matthews,  Stanley,  412,  416, 
505,  515  n. 

Maximilian,  Archduke,  in  Mex 
ico,  130,  205,  206,  244. 

Meade,  George  G.,  retained  in 
command  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac  by  G.,  154;  his  rela 
tions  with  G.,  155,  156;  his 
difficult  temper,  156,  157;  his 
long  siege  of  Petersburg,  172; 
and  Sheridan,  177,  178;  53, 
131,  153,  159,  161,  174,  175, 
193. 

Medill,  Joseph,  412. 

Meigs,  Montgomery  C.,  57. 

Merchant  marine,  building  up 
of,  urged  by  G.,  528,  529. 

Merritt,  Wesley,  192,  550  and  n. 

Mexican  War,  G.  quoted  on,  27, 
28. 

Mexico,  G.  negotiates  com 
mercial  treaty  with,  554,  555. 
And  see  Maximilian. 

Military  rule  in  South,  G.'s 
views  on,  458,  459. 

Mill  Springs,  battle  of,  71. 

Miller,  Justice  Samuel  F.,  mi 
nority  opinion  in  Legal  Tender 
case,  353;  513,  515. 

Milwaukee,  whiskey  frauds  in, 
476,  477. 


Missionary  Ridge,  138,  139. 

Mississippi,  reorganized  state 
government  in,  230;  Senators 
and  Representatives  from,  ad 
mitted  to  Congress,  363;  in 
1875,  463-66;  375. 

"  Mississippi  Plan,"  the,  465, 
466. 

Missouri,  and  the  Liberal  Re 
publican  movement  of  1872, 
408,  409. 

Molino  del  Rey,  battle  of,  29. 

Moltke,  Count  von,  535. 

Monroe  Doctrine,  322,  336,  527. 

Monterey,  battle  of,  28. 

Morgan,  Edwin  D.,  552. 

Morgan,  J.  P.  &  Co.,  443. 

Morrill  Tariff,  394. 

Morris,  Thomas,  17. 

Morton,  Oliver  P.,  favors  infla 
tion,  447,  449,  450;  231,  321, 
326,  327,  328,  331,  352,  365, 
373,  401,  444,  498,  513,  519  n. 

Moses,  Franklin  J.,  Jr.,  472. 

Motley,  J.  Lothrop,  quoted  on 
G.,  139,  140,  380,  381;  urged 
by  Sumner  as  Minister  to 
Great  Britain,  291,  and  ap 
pointed,  295;  defects  of  his 
qualities,  292  and  n. ;  prepares 
memorandum  of  instructions 
to  be  given  him,  which  Fish 
disregards,  299,  300;  in  first 
interview  with  Clarendon  dis 
regards  instructions,  300,  301, 
302;  G.  desires  his  immediate 
dismissal,  301;  censured  by 
Fish,  301;  negative  results  of 
his  mission,  301,  302;  Sir  J. 
Rose's  comments  on,  303; 
demand  for  his  resignation 
charged  to  G.'s  anger  with 
Sumner,  323-25,  331,  332;  re 
moved,  326,  331,  385,  386; 
284,  338,  551. 

Napoleon  III,  withdraws  troops 
from  Mexico,  244;  206. 


588 


INDEX 


Nashville,  Hood  and  Thomas  in 
presence  at,  182-84;  battle  of, 
the  most  complete  Union  vic 
tory  in  the  war,  185. 

Nation,  the,  412,  413. 

National  Intelligencer,  quoted, 
264. 

Negro  suffrage,  approved  by 
Johnson,  with  qualifications, 
218,  219;  desired  by  Sumner 
without  discrimination,  219, 
220;  Schofield's  views  on,  223, 
224;  G.'s  views  on,  228,  357, 
457,  459;  G.  forced  by  events 
to  support,  229,  457;  attitude 
of  North  toward,  232,  233;  in 
election  of  1868,  271 ;  passage 
of  15th  Amendment,  273; 
effect  of  hasty  grant  of,  456, 
457. 

Negroes,  in  "reconstructed" 
States,  359,  360,  361;  dread  of 
domination  of,  in  the  South, 
457;  in  Mississippi,  in  1875, 
463,  464;  massacre  of,  at  Col- 
fax,  La.,  468. 

Nelson,  Justice  Samuel,  on  Joint 
High  Commission,  308;  353. 

Nelson,  William,  86,  87,  89. 

New  Orleans  riot  (1866),  359. 

New  York,  factional  quarrel  in, 
in  1872,  410;  row  over  ap 
pointment  of  Robertson  as 
Collector  of,  550  and  n. 

New  York  Evening  Post,  412, 
413. 

New  York  Sun,  431. 

New  York  Tribune,  quoted  on 
Whiskey  Ring  prosecutions, 
484;  410,  411,  413,  416, 

Nicholls,  Francis  T.  (Louisiana), 
518  and  n. 

North,  the,  denunciation  of  G. 
after  Shiloh,  by  press  of,  94; 
military  position  of,  when  G. 
assumed  chief  command,  152, 
153;  general  conditions  in, 
154;  July  and  August,  1864, 


the  darkest  months  of  the  war 
in,  172;  one  faction  in,  clamors 
for  supersession  of  G.  by  Mc- 
Clellan,  173;  Johnson's  re 
construction  policy  generally 
approved  in,  at  first,  230,  232, 
233;  blames  G.  for  acquiescing 
in  Stanton's  removal,  256; 
misapprehension  of  Southern 
attitude  toward  negroes  in, 
456. 

North  American  Review,  quoted, 
485  n.,  488  n. 

North  Carolina,  reorganized 
government  in,  230;  cor 
ruption  in,  367,  368;  360. 

Northcote,  Sir  Stafford,  on  Joint 
High  Commission,  309. 

Norton,  Charles  Eliot,  quoted, 
103,  200,  393. 

"Old  Guard,"  the.  See  Stal 
wart  Republicans. 

Ord,  Edward  O.  C.,  105,  193, 
196 

Oregon,  dispute  as  to  an  elector 
in,  507,  514. 

Ottendorfer,  Oswald,  418. 

Packard,  S.  B.  (Louisiana),  466, 

467,  518  and  n.,  549. 
Paducah,  Ky.,  seized  by  G.,  62. 
Painter,  U.  H.,  214. 
Palmer,  John  M.,  412,  505,  506. 
Palmer,  Sir  Roundell,  310. 
Panic  of  1873,  443  ff. 
Patronage.    See  Spoils  System. 
Patterson,  James  W.,  307,  320, 

434. 

Payne,  Henry  B.,  510,  513. 
Peace  Commission,  the,  188-90. 
Pemberton,  John  C.,  surrenders 

Vicksburg,  119;  30,  106,  108, 

117,  118,  170  n. 
Pennsylvania,  refuses  assent  to 

Johnson's  policy,  230. 
Perry,  Mr.,  U.S.,  consular  agent 

in  San  Domingo,  316. 


INDEX 


589 


Petersburg,  Va.,  threatened  by 
G.,  167;  Butler  fails  to  attack, 
171;  garrison  of,  reinforced, 
171;  long  siege  of,  171,  172; 
occupied  by  G.,  192,  193. 

Phelps,  William  W.,  471. 

Philadelphia  Times,  412. 

Phillips,  Wendell,  denounced  by 
Johnson,  236;  233. 

Pierce,  Franklin,  327. 

Pierrepont,  Edwards,  Attorney- 
General,  464,  481,  482,  483, 
535. 

Pillow,  Gideon  H.,  in  command 
at  Donelson,  70;  G.'s  low  opin 
ion  of ,  70;  72,  73. 

Pittsburg  Landing,  85,  86. 

Pius  IX,  Pope,  535. 

Platt,  Thomas  C.,  resigns  New 
York  Senatorship  and  seeks 
reelection,  550  and  n. 

Point  Pleasant,  Ohio,  3. 

Poland,  Luke  P.,  433,  462,  463. 

Polk,  Leonidas,  61,  63,  70,  76. 

Polo,  Senor,  Spanish  Minister  to 
U.S.,  524. 

Poore,  Ben:  Perley,  and  the  quar 
rel  between  G.  and  Sumner, 
317  ff. 

Pope,  John,  48,  59,  77,  93,  95, 
104,  131,  164. 

Port  Hudson,  value  of,  to  Con 
federacy,  105. 

Porter,  David  D.,  runs  Vicks- 
burg  batteries,  117;  110. 

Porter,  Fitz-John,  his  conviction 
reversed,  553;  59. 

Porter,  Horace,  his  Campaigning 
with  Grant  quoted,  87,  134, 
135,  136,  147;  125,  165,  192, 
346,  347,  390,  538. 

Potomac,  Army  of  the,  G.'s  first 
contact  with,  155;  from  the 
Wilderness  to  Cold  Harbor, 
162-66;  losses  in  the  cam 
paign,  168. 

Potter,  Clarkson  N.,  471. 

Prentiss,    Benjamin    M.,    cap 


tured  at  Shiloh,  59,  85,  87,  88, 
89,  92;  94,  109. 

Price,  Sterling,  63,  105. 

Pryor,  Roger  A.,  466. 

Public  credit,  G.  on  the  necessity 
of  upholding,  339,  340;  Con 
gress  passes  act  to  strengthen, 
341. 

Public  debt,  proposal  to  pay,  in 
greenbacks,  340,  341;  in  1869, 
350,  351;  reduction  of,  in  G.'s 
administration,  530,  531. 

Quinby,  Isaac  F.,  at  West  Point 
with  G.,  21. 

Railroads,  great  increase  in  mile 
age  of,  442;  finances  of,  443. 

Randall,  Samuel  J.,  516. 

Rawlins,  John  A.,  J.  H.  Wilson 
quoted  on  G.  and,  124;  was 
G.'s  conscience,  124;  selection 
of,  for  the  staff,  most  fortu 
nate  forG.,  124, 125;  his  char 
acter  and  influence  on  G.,  125, 
126;  his  service  to  G.  in  con 
nection  with  the  drink  habit, 

125,  126;    Dana   quoted   on, 

126,  127;  appointed  Secretary 
of  War,  277,  278;  sympathizes 
with  Cuban  insurgents,  337; 
his  death,   338;  a  great  loss 
to  G.,  393;  33,  119,  134,  163, 
266. 

Reconstruction,  Lincoln's  plan 
of,  208  ff.;  Stevens's  and 
Sumner's  views  of,  211;  Lin 
coln's  speech  of  April  11, 1865, 
on,  211,  212;  what  might  have 
been,  219,  220,  224,  225;  in 
G.'s  administration,  357  ff.\ 
G.'s  views  on  wisest  policy  of, 
458,  459. 

Reconstruction  Act  of  1864,  ve 
toed  by  Lincoln,  209,  210. 

Of  1867,  passed  by  Congress  over 
Johnson's  veto,  248,  249; 
terms  of,  249. 


590 


INDEX 


Reconstruction  Committee  of 
House,  reports  resolutions  of 
impeachment  of  Johnson,  259, 
269. 

Red  River,  105. 

Regiment,  Fourth  U.S.  Infantry, 
G.  commissioned  second  lieu 
tenant  in,  24;  joins  "army  of 
occupation"  in  Texas,  27. 

Regiment,  Twenty- First  Illinois, 
G.  appointed  colonel  of,  50,  51. 

Reid,  John  C.,  501,  502  n. 

Republican  National  Conven 
tion  of  1868,  nominates  Grant 
and  Coif  ax,  270;  financial 
platform  adopted  by,  341. 

Of  1872,  renominates  G., 
420,  with  H.  Wilson,  421. 

Of  1880,  third-term  move 
ment  in  .542-47;  nominates 
Garfield,  546. 

Republican  party,  suffers  on  ac 
count  of  salary  grab,  437; 
loses  control  of  House  in  44th 
Congress,  452. 

Revels,  Hiram  R.,  361,  363. 

Revenue  reform.  See  Tariff  re 
form. 

Rhodes,  James  Ford,  History  of  the 
U.S.,  quoted,  146,  147,  485  n. 

Richardson,  William  A.,  Sec'y 
of  the  Treasury,  and  the  San- 
born  contracts,  439  ff. ;  ap 
pointed  to  Court  of  Claims, 
441 ;  reissues  greenbacks,  447, 
448;  345,  444,  476. 

Richmond,  G.'s  view  of  impor 
tance  of  capture  of,  159,  160; 
abandoned  by  Confederate 
Government,  193. 

Robertson,  William  H.,  sequel 
of  his  appointment  as  Collec 
tor  of  New  York,  550  and  n. 

Robeson,  George  M.,  Secretary 
of  the  Navy,  278,  317,  389. 

Romero,  Matias,  554. 

Roosevelt,  Theodore,  437. 

Rose,  Sir  John,  negotiates  with 


Fish,  302,  303,  306-08 ;  quoted 
on  Motley,  303;  333,  336. 
Rosecrans,  William  S.,  at  West 
Point  with  G.,  21;  wins  bat 
tle  of  Stone  River,  108;  his 
reply  to  Stanton's  "bribe," 
116;  defeated  by  Johnston  at 
Chickamauga,  130;  and  G., 
131;  cooped  up  in  Chatta 
nooga,  132,  133;  57,  96,  105, 
107,  183. 

St.  Louis,  whiskey  frauds  in, 
476,  477. 

St.  Louis  Democrat,  477. 

"Salary  Grab,"  the,  435-37. 

Samana  Bay,  314,  317. 

San  Domingo,  rotation  of  Baez 
and  Cabral  in  presidency  of, 
312,  313;  Baez  seeks  interven 
tion  of  U.S.,  313;  Johnson  re 
commends  annexation  of,  313, 
which  is  favored  by  G.,  314; 
Babcock  executes  protocol  to 
that  end,  315,  316;  his  second 
visit  results  in  treaty  of  an 
nexation,  etc.,  317;  Senate  re 
fuses  ratification,  320-23;  G. 
renews  efforts  for  annexation, 
326  ff. ;  committee  of  investi 
gation  appointed,  326-28,  and 
reports  favorably,  but  no  ac 
tion  is  taken,  329;  was  G.  on 
the  right  path?  330;  Schurz 
opposed  to  annexation  of,  408. 
Sanborn,  John  D.,  and  his 
contracts,  439-41. 

Sartoris,  Algernon,  534. 

Sartoris,  Nellie  (Grant),  G.'s 
daughter,  534. 

Saturday  Club,  the,  291. 

Schenck,  Robert  C.,  on  Joint 
High  Commission,  308;  15, 
331,  386. 

Schofield,  John  M.,  beats  Hood 
at  Franklin,  182;  ordered  to 
replace  Thomas,  184;  on  ne 
gro  suffrage,  223-24;  his  mis- 


INDEX 


591 


sions  to  Mexico  and  Paris, 
244;  his  Forty-Six  Years  in  the 
Army,  quoted,  360  n. ;  Secre 
tary  of  War,  vice  Stanton,  277 ; 
130,  160,  225,  359,  360,  553. 

Schurz,  Carl,  Reminiscences, 
quoted,  283,  285,  286,  321  n., 
370 ;  his  history  and  character, 
407,  408  and  n.,  409;  rebuked 
by  Lincoln,  408  n. ;  opposes 
San  Domingo  treaty,  408; 
mainly  responsible  for  Liberal 
Republican  movement  of  1872, 
409,  410;  his  companions  in 
the  movement,  412;  urges 
Greeley  to  withdraw,  417; 
quoted,  471,  491  n.;  320,  380, 
382,  384,  389,  398,  418,  491, 
537. 

Scott,  Robert  K.  (So.  Carolina), 
472. 

Scott,  Winfield,  G.'s  early  im 
pressions  of,  23,  24;  general- 
in-chief  at  outbreak  of  Civil 
War,  57;  30,  31. 

Sedgwick,  John,  155. 

Seward,  William  H.,  Secretary 
of  State,  distrusted  by  G., 
203;  quoted,  281,  282;  145, 
188,  189,  207,  244,  245,  250, 
291,  294. 

Seymour,  Horatio,  Democratic 
candidate  for  President  in 
1868,  271;  359. 

Sharkey,  W.  L.  (Mississippi), 
218,  219. 

Shepard,  Alexander,  Governor 
of  .the  District  of  Columbia, 
475,  476. 

Sheridan,  Philip  H.,  and  Meade, 
177,  178;  whips  Stuart  at 
Yellow  Tavern,  178,  179;  Ce 
dar  Creek  and  "Sheridan's 
Ride,"  180;  G.  quoted  on, 
180,  181;  wins  battle  of  Five 
Forks,  192;  Johnson's  reason 
for  wishing  to  displace,  251; 
G.  protests  to  Johnson  against 


his  displacement,  252;  this 
question  leads  to  break  between 
Johnson  and  G.,  257,  258;  in 
Louisiana  (1875),  470,  471; 
134,  139, 156,  170  n.,  191,  193, 
194,  196,  205,  206,  207,  222, 
239,  247,  256,  297,  359,  360  n., 
381,  464,  505. 

Sherman,  John,  G.'s  sole  de 
fender  in  Senate  after  Shiloh, 
98;  and  the  panic  of  1873, 
447,  448;  and  the  resumption 
of  specie  payments,  454,  455; 
111,  234,  296,  339,  504,  505, 
507,  511,  513,  537,  545  n. 

Sherman,  William  T.,  quoted 
on  G.'s  character,  2,  56  n.; 
at  West  Point  with  G.,  21; 
his  magnanimity,  74,  75; 
quoted  on  C.  F.  Smith,  82;  at 
Shiloh,  86  ff. ;  his  advice  to  G., 
97,  98;  his  anger  at  attacks  on 
G.,  102,  103;  his  part  in  G.'s 
original  plan  for  capture  of 
Vicksburg,  106,  107;  his  as 
sault  repulsed,  108,  115; 
superseded  by  McClernand, 
108;  his  anger  against  Lin 
coln,  111,  112;  quoted  on  Mc 
Clernand  and  G.,  113,  114; 
opposes  G.'s  new  plan  of  cam 
paign  against  Vicksburg,  118, 
119,  but  loyally  helps  to  carry 
it  out,  119;  gives  G.  full  credit, 
119;  quoted  on  the  campaign, 
121,  122;  G.'s  fine  letter  to, 
and  his  reply,  143,  144;  urges 
G.  to  remain  in  West,  144, 145 ; 
placed  by  G.  in  command  of 
new  Division  of  the  Mississip 
pi,  154;  the  march  to  the  sea, 
160,  161,  172,  173,  182,  185, 
186;  held  at  Atlanta,  173;  en 
ters  Atlanta,  177;  outdazzles 
G.  in  popular  esteem,  186; 
congratulated  by  Lincoln, 
186;  cordial  relations  with 
G.,  186;  marches  North  from 


592 


INDEX 


Savannah,  187,  to  Goldsboro, 
N.C.,  191;  his  "impossible" 
terms  to  Johnston,  and  their 
sequel,  201;  G.'s  tact  saves 
him  from  humiliation,  201; 
quoted  on  G.'s  troubles  in 
Washington,  226,  227;  or 
dered  to  Washington,  and 
why,  245,  246,  247;  goes  to 
Mexico  in  G.'s  place,  247; 
quoted  on  G.'s  qualifications 
for  presidency,  279;  54,  55, 
70,  84,  96,  100,  115,  117,  132, 
134,  135,  136,  137,  139,  155, 
159,  170  n.,  183,  193,  225, 
245,  260,  262,  263,  264,  360  n., 
381,  423,  473. 

Shiloh,  battle  of,  85-92. 

Sickles,  Daniel  E.,  523,  524. 

Sigel,  Franz,  160,  161. 

Simmons,  William  A.,  appointed 
Collector  of  Boston  by  But 
ler's  influence,  438. 

Slocum,  Henry  W.,  160. 

Smith,  Charles  F.,  Comman 
dant  at  West  Point,  21;  G.'s 
admiration  for,  24;  com 
mands  at  Paducah,  70;  tem 
porarily  supersedes  G.  after 
Donelson,  78-82;  G.'s  rela 
tions  with,  82 ;  his  early  death, 
82;  Sherman  quoted  on,  82; 
62,  68,  73,  76,  83,  84,  98. 

Smith,  Kirby,  205. 

Smith,  R.  M.,  361  n. 

Smith,  Thomas  Kilby,  13. 

Smith,  William  F.  ("Baldy"), 
at  Petersburg,  171;  and  But 
ler,  174,  175;  why  relieved 
from  duty  by  G.,  174,  175; 
claims  that  Butler  black 
mailed  G.,  175;  135,  137. 

Sniffen,  Charles  C.,  482  n., 
518  n. 

Solid  South,  the  negro  question 
sole  cause  of,  456,  457. 

South,  G.'s  mission  to,  220-22; 
general  opinion  in,  of  John 


son's  accession,  222;  State 
governments  reorganized  in 
(1865),  230;  threatening  con 
ditions  in  (1866),  239,  240; 
refuses  to  ratify  14th  Amend 
ment,  241 ;  in  the  election  of 
1868,  272;  rule  of  carpet 
baggers  and  scalawags  in,  272, 
273;  critical  conditions  in, 
when  G.  became  President, 
273;  G.'s  good-will  toward, 
357;  conditions  in.  during  his 
administrations,  357  ff. ;  report 
of  committee  to  investigate 
affairs  in,  372;  predominance 
of  negro  question  in,  456,  457; 
number  of  troops  in,  in  1872, 
458  and  n. 

South  Carolina,  reorganized 
state  government  in,  230;  ne 
gro  supremacy  in,  360,  361 ; 
habeas  corpus  suspended  in, 
374,  375;  in  the  disputed  elec 
tion  of  1876,  502,  503  and  n.; 
472,  514. 

Specie  payments,  resumption  of, 
urged  by  G.,  452,  and  pro 
vided  for  by  Congress,  454, 
455. 

Spoils  system,  denounced  by 
G.,  399,  400. 

Spotsylvania  Court-House,  165. 

Springfield  Republican,  379,  412, 
413. 

Stalwart  Republicans,  and  the 
Third  Term,  496,  497;  out  of 
favor  and  out  of  sorts  with 
Hayes,  537;  turn  to  G.,  537; 
their  diplomacy,  looking  to  a 
third  term,  538;  their  daring 
and  resourceful  leaders,  539, 
540;  preparing  for  the  Con 
vention,  542,  543;  led  by 
Conkling,  544,  545  n.,  306  of 
them  stand  by  G.  to  the  end, 
546;  support  Garfield,  550. 

Stanbery,  Henry,  Attorney- 
General,  245. 


INDEX 


593 


Stanton,  Edwin  M.,  Secretary 
of  War,  offers  a  "bribe"  to 
G.,  Hooker,  and  Rosecrans, 
116;  puts  G.  in  command  of 
Division  of  the  Mississippi, 
133;  and  the  terms  offered 
by  Sherman  to  Johnston, 
201;  G.'s  sentiments  to 
ward,  and  relation  with,  203; 
his  want  of  tact  in  dealing 
with  G.,  217;  his  quarrel  with 
Johnson  of  slow  develop 
ment,  231;  relations  with 
Johnson  badly  strained,  239; 
and  the  radicals  in  Congress, 
242;  his  original  attitude  on 
Tenure  of  Office  Act,  250,  258; 
his  breach  with  Johnson  com 
plete,  251 ;  G.  protests  against 
his  removal,  252;  refuses  to 
resign,  253;  suspended,  254; 
his  letter  to  Johnson,  255 ;  his 
suspension  not  ratified  by 
Senate,  259 ;  resumes  his  office, 
259,  260;  bars  Thomas  from 
the  Department,  269;  his  re 
moval  admitted  to  have  been 
within  the  law,  269;  77,  96, 
100,  119,  126,  128,  134,  172, 
176,  179,  181,  183,  199  and  n., 
227,  235,  236,  243,  245,  246, 
247,  256,  260  n.,  261,  262,  265, 
267,  268,  277,  354,  492. 

Stephens,  Alexander  H.,  at  City 
Point,  188;  his  Recollections 
quoted,  189;  Lincoln's  inter 
view  with,  189,  190. 

Stevens,  Thaddeus,  opposes 
Lincoln's  plan  of  reconstruc 
tion,  210,  211;  organizes  op 
position  to  Johnson  in  House, 
231;  his  character,  231;  de 
nounced  by  Johnson,  236; 
rushes  Reconstruction  bill 
through  the  House,  248,  249; 
215,  222,  269,  272. 

Stewart,  A.  T.,  nominated  for 


Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
proves  to  be  ineligible,  276. 

Stone,  Charles  P.,  59. 

Stone  River,  battle  of,  and  its 
ultimate  result,  108. 

Strong,  Justice  William,  and  the 
second  Legal  Tender  deci 
sion,  354-56;  492,  513,  515. 

Stuart,  J.  E.  B.,  beaten  and 
killed  at  Yellow  Tavern,  178, 
179. 

Sumner,  Charles,  his  views  on 
Reconstruction,  210,  211,  219, 
220;  quoted  on  Lincoln's  April 
11  speech,  212;  organizes 
opposition  to  Johnson  in 
Senate,  231;  his  character, 
231,  232,  287-89;  denounces 
Johnson's  policy,  233;  his 
interview  with  Johnson,  234; 
denounced  by  Johnson,  236; 
relations  with  G.,  284,  285, 
and  with  Fish,  285;  his  low 
opinion  of  G.,  285;  and  Lin 
coln,  285-87;  leader  of  the 
Senate,  287 ;  Lodge  quoted  on, 
288,  289;  Schurz  on,  289; 
C.  F.  Adams  on  G.  and,  289, 
290;  urges  Motley  for  mission 
to  Great  Britain,  291 ;  his  vio 
lent  attack  on  the  Johnson- 
Clarendon  Convention,  295, 
296;  Adams  quoted  on  effect 
of  his  speech,  295;  assumes 
to  shape  foreign  policy  of 
Administration,  298,  299;  his 
influence  leads  Motley  to 
disregard  Fish's  instructions, 
300,  301 ;  insists  on  withdraw 
al  of  Great  Britain  from  West 
ern  hemisphere,  307,  308;  de 
posed  from  Chairmanship  of 
Foreign  Relations  Committee, 
309,  333,  385;  G.  seeks  his 
support  in  San  Domingo 
matter,  317  ff.\  divergent  re 
ports  concerning  their  inter 
view,  318-20;  G.'s  anger,  and 


594 


INDEX 


the  removal  of  Motley,  323- 
25,  331,  332;  his  wrath  against 
G.,  326,  327;  his  "Naboth's 
Vineyard"  speech,  327,  328; 
breaks  with  Fish  over  Motley 
matter,  333;  ignored  by  Ad 
ministration  in  all  diplomatic 
business,  333;  has  few  real 
friends  in  Senate,  333;  un 
sparing  in  denunciation  of  G., 
333;  G.'s  "curious  comment" 
on,  334;  blocks  bill  for  general 
amnesty,  377;  his  Civil  Rights 
bill,  378;  charges  G.  with 
nepotism,  391,  392;  his  speech 
of  May  31,  1872,  421,  422; 
215,  222,  223,  276,  281,  282, 
303,  337,  365,  380,  381,  382, 
384,  385,  389,  398,  399,  412, 
437,  438,  439,  551. 

Supreme  Court  of  the  U.S.,  holds 
Legal  Tender  Act  unconstitu 
tional,  352-54 ;  how  divided  on 
the  question,  353,  354;  re 
verses  itself  after  appointment 
of  Strong  and  Bradley,  354, 
355;  was  the  Court  packed? 
355,  356;  denies  constitu 
tionality  of  Enforcement 
Acts,  373,  374;  holds  Civil 
Rights  bill  unconstitutional, 
463. 

Swann,  Thomas,  Governor  of 
Maryland,  243. 

Swayne,  Justice  Noah  H.,  354. 

Sweeney,  Peter  B.,  343. 

Swett,  Leonard,  and  G.,  116. 

Taft,  William  H.,  492. 

Tammany  Hall,  371. 

Tariff,  the,  Act  of  1870,  395;  acts 
of  1872,  397,  398;  in  party 
platforms  of  1872,  419,  420; 
G.'s  views  on,  530. 

Tariff  reform,  agitation  for, 
394  ff.;  G.  quoted  on,  395-97; 
included  in  Missouri  Liberal 
Republican  platform,  410,  but 


kept  out  of  national  platform 
by  Greeley,  415. 

Taylor,  Bayard,  498  n. 

Taylor,  Zachary,  27,  30. 

Tennessee,  360. 

Tenterden,  C.  S.  A.  Abbott, 
Baron,  310. 

Tenure  of  Office  Act,  passed 
over  Johnson's  veto,  249 ;  Stan- 
ton's  early  views  on,  250,  252 ; 
relation  of,  to  Stanton's  case, 
259,  261  ff. ;  269. 

Terry,  Alfred  A.,  187,  365. 

Texas,  Senators  and  Represen 
tatives  admitted  to  Congress 
from,  363. 

Thayer,  William  R.,  Life  of  John 
Hay,  214. 

Third  Term,  talk  of,  in  1876, 
496,  497;  G.  opposed  to,  497; 
House  passes  resolution  con 
demning,  497  n.\  Stalwarts 
plan  for,  in  1880,  537,  538; 
deep-rooted  feeling  against,  in 
country,  539. 

Thomas,  George  H.,  at  West 
Point  with  G.,  21;  takes  Mill 
Springs,  71;  the  "Rock  of 
Chickamauga,"  130,  131,  132; 
refuses  to  supersede  Rosecrans, 
133;  relations  with  G.,  134; 
his  delay  in  attacking  Hood  at 
Nashville,  182  ff.;  underrated 
by  G.,  183;  G.  urges  him  to  at 
tack,  183,  184;  orders  Scho- 
field  to  take  over  his  command, 
and  suspends  the  order,  184; 
Logan  under  orders  to  super 
sede  him  when  he  destroys 
Hood's  army  at  Nashville, 
185;  is  made  major-general, 
185;  69,  77,  95,  135,  137,  138, 
139,  155,  160,  181,  225. 

Thomas  Lorenzo,  ordered  by 
Johnson  to  take  possession  of 
Stanton's  office,  but  is  barred 
out,  269;  259. 

Thompson,  Jacob,  377. 


INDEX 


595 


Thornton,  Sir  Edward,  on  Joint 
High  Commission,  309;  303. 

Thurman,  Allen  G.,  370,  373, 
511,  513. 

Tilden,  Samuel  J.,  Democratic 
candidate  for  President  in 
1876,  499;  Watterson  quoted 
on,  499  n.;  dispute  over  elec 
tion,  500  ff.;  should  he  have 
been  declared  elected?  516, 
517;  511,  512,  519  n.,  520. 

Tilton,  Theodore,  412. 

Tod,  David,  8. 

Tod,  George,  8. 

Triumvirate,  the,  in  Third  Term 
movement,  540. 

Trobriand,  P.  R.  de,  470, 471,472. 

Trumbull,  Lyman,  234,  384,  389, 
412,  413,  414,  416,  505,  506. 

Tweed,  William  M.,  343,  528. 

Tyner,  James  N.,  Postmaster- 
General,  487. 

Underwood,  Judge,  203,  204. 
Union  Pacific  Railroad,  and  the 
Credit  Mobilier,  431  ff. 

Van  Buren,  Martin,  535. 

Van  Dora,  Earl,  63, 105, 106, 108. 

Vanderbilt,  William  H.,  his  loan 
to  G.,  559,  560. 

Vicksburg,  value  of,  to  Con 
federacy,  105;  well-nigh  im 
pregnable,  105,  106;  first  cam 
paign  for  reduction  of,  106, 
107;  Sherman's  assault  on,  re 
pulsed,  108;  final  campaign 
against,  117,  118;  fall  of,  119. 

Viele,  Ernest  L.,  22. 

Virginia,  Senators  and  Repre 
sentatives  admitted  to  Con 
gress  from,  363;  359,  360. 

Virginius  case,  the,  523-25. 

"Visiting  Statesmen"  in  Louis 
iana,  505,  506. 

Wade,  Benjamin  F.,  213,  222, 
254,  328. 


Waite,  Morrison  R.,  appointed 
Chief  Justice,  495;  310,  328, 
483,  516. 

Wallace,  Lew,  73,  77,  85,  86,  87, 
89,  505. 

Wallace,  William,  killed  at 
Shiloh,  89;  85. 

Ward,  Ferdinand,  responsible 
for  G.'s  financial  disaster, 
556  ff.,  560. 

Warmoth,  Henry  C.  (Louisiana), 
466,  467. 

Warren,  G.  K.,  174. 

Washburne,  Elihu  B.,  instru 
mental  in  securing  G.'s  first 
commission  as  bridadier-gen- 
eral,  58,  59 ;  first  suggests  that 
G.  be  made  lieu  tenant-general, 
141;  appointed  Secretary  of 
State,  275;  71,  100,  101,  276, 
280,  282,  425,  432,  540,  541, 
542,  548. 

Washington,  George,  G.'s  Ad 
ministration  ranks  second  to 
his,  532. 

Washington  (capital),  thrown 
into  panic  by  Early  'a  raid,  172. 

Washington,  Treaty  of,  309, 
310,  530. 

Watterson,  Henry,  quoted, 
499  n.,  515  n.;  413,  506. 

Watts,  Mr.,  an  Oregon  elector, 
507. 

Wayne,  Justice  James  M.,  354. 

Welles,  Gideon,  his  Diary 
quoted,  233,  255,  265. 

Wells,  David  A.,  412,  414,  418. 

Wells,  J.  Madison  (Louisiana), 
251,  505,  506. 

Welsh,  William,  404. 

Wheeler,  William  A.,  472. 

Whiskey  Ring,  the,  476  ff. 

White,  Andrew  D.,  quoted,  313, 
329,  330. 

White,  Horace,  Life  of  Lyman 
Trumbull  quoted,  413,  414; 
on  nomination  of  Greeley, 
417;  412. 


596 


INDEX 


White  Leagues,  357,  361,  469. 

Williams,  George  H.  on  Joint 
High  Commission,  309;  At 
torney-General,  467;  declines 
Chief  Justiceship,  493,  494. 

Wilmington,  No.  Carolina,  187. 

Wilson,  Bluford,  480. 

Wilson,  Henry,  nominated  for 
Vice-President,  421;  222,  365, 
424,  425,  433. 

Wilson,  James  F.,  280,  281. 

Wilson,  James  H.,  Life  of  C.  A 
Dana,  quoted,  124;  56  n.,  125, 
128,  174,  191,  221. 

Wilson,  Jeremiah  M.,  433. 

Windom,  William,  542. 


Wood,  Charles,  his  loan  to  G., 

559. 

Wood,  Mr.,  138,  139. 
Worth,  William  J.,  quoted,  28. 

Yates,  Richard,  Governor  of 
Illinois,  employs  G.  in  ad 
jutant-general's  office,  45,  46; 
makes  G.  Colonel  of  21st 
Illinois,  49,  50;  58. 

Young,  John  Russell,  Around 
the  World  with  General  Grant 
quoted,  128,  129,  170  n.,  301, 
458,  459,  498  n. ;  536,  543. 

Zollicoffer,  Felix  K.,  69. 


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